DPRK-Russia19

Russia
Includes Ukraine and Eastern/Central Europe and NATO and the use of anti-Russian hysteria (eg Russiagate, Ukrainegate) as a US domestic political weapon
2019
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DECEMBER 2019

James Comey’s Interview on Fox News Screams Out for Correction
John Kiriakou December 19, 2019 • 1 Comment Former FBI Director James Comey gave an interview this week to journalist Chris Wallace on Fox News in which he made one of the most disingenuous and dissembling statements I’ve heard in years, one that screams out for correction and real Congressional oversight. When asked about Justice Department Inspector General (IG) Michael Horowitz’s report, which found “17 significant errors and omissions” by the FBI when it began investigating alleged Russian involvement with the 2016 Trump campaign and it applied for a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant against former Trump campaign aide Carter Page, Comey said that he had been “overconfident” when he defended the FBI’s use of FISA. Overconfident! Comey ignored the fact that the FBI repeatedly renewed the warrant against Page, whom the FBI suspected was working for Russian intelligence, even if it had no evidence to indicate that was the case. He downplayed the fact that an FBI attorney illegally changed an FBI report to indicate that Page was not working for the CIA, when the FBI knew for a fact that he was. Perhaps most disingenuously, Comey told Wallace that, “I thought the FBI had gone about this in a thoughtful and appropriate way. He’s (Horowitz) right. I was wrong. I was overconfident as director in our procedures…It’s incredibly hard to get a FISA.” Comey downplayed the fact that this all happened on his watch. The buck was supposed to stop with him. He was the boss, the commander, the one giving the orders. He knew exactly what the FBI had on Page and what it did not. And the truth was that it had nothing. Comey’s Lie About a FISA Warrant Even more importantly, at least for the American people as a whole, is Comey’s lie that “it’s incredibly hard to get a FISA.” It’s actually incredibly easy to get a FISA. Over its 33-year lifespan, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has issued 33,942 warrants. It has denied 12. In fact, between the court’s creation in 1986 and 2003, it didn’t deny a single request for a warrant. Those numbers simply don’t support Comey’s odd contention that it’s “incredibly hard” to get a FISA. He’s lying to us. [Russiagate] [Comey] [FBI] [Disinformation]
Ukraine lawmaker seeking Biden probe meets with Giuliani in Kyiv
Ukrainian lawmaker Andriy Derkach and President Trump’s personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani show a document during a meeting in Kyiv, in an image posted by Derkach on Dec. 5, 2019. (Andriy Derkach/Reuters) By David L. Stern and Robyn Dixon Dec. 6, 2019 at 11:45 a.m. GMT+13 KYIV, Ukraine — President Trump’s personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani met Thursday in Ukraine with one of the key figures working to build a corruption case against Hunter Biden, the Ukraine lawmaker said, after posting Facebook photographs of himself with the former New York mayor. Andriy Derkach said he pressed Giuliani on the need to set up a joint U.S.-Ukraine investigation into corruption in Ukraine at the meeting in Kyiv. Derkach also vowed to set up an anti-corruption group in the Ukraine parliament. Giuliani did not make any immediate public comments on the meetings in Ukraine. But in tweets hours later, he drew connections between future U.S. aid and investigations by Ukraine into former vice president Joe Biden — issues that are already at the center of the impeachment inquiry. Giuliani tweeted that U.S. assistance to Ukraine on anti-corruption reforms could face a “major obstacle” until the “conversation about corruption in Ukraine” is resolved. Giuliani alleged “compelling” evidence of criminal misdeeds by Biden, but gave no specifics. [Ukrainegate] [Giuliani] [Andriy Derkach] [Biden] [Corruption]
She wore the Russian flag. He had Ukraine’s. Some people loved the photo and others were aghast.
By Isabelle Khurshudyan Dec. 5, 2019 at 4:20 a.m. GMT+13 Juliana Kuznetsova and her fiance were at a concert in Poland last week when she noticed flags from nearby countries dispersed throughout the crowd. That gave her an idea. She is Russian. Her fiance is Ukrainian. They borrowed the flags for their respective nations and asked someone to snap a photo of them together after the concert in Warsaw by Belarusan rapper Max Korzh. Kuznetsova said they didn’t plan the pose, but she and her fiance stood with their foreheads together, not looking at the camera and holding each other while wrapped in the flags. [Danger of peace] [Russia confrontation]

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NOVEMBER 2019

25 Times Trump Has Been Dangerously Hawkish On Russia
November 19, 2019 Caitlin Johnstone discredits a CNN listicle on Trump’s “softness” towards Moscow. In fact, she writes, the U.S. president has actually been consistently reckless towards Moscow, with zero resistance from either party. By Caitlin Johnstone CNN has published a fascinatingly manipulative and falsehood-laden article titled “25 times Trump was soft on Russia,” in which a lot of strained effort is poured into building the case that the U.S. president is suspiciously loyal to the nation against which he has spent his administration escalating dangerous new cold war aggressions. The items within the CNN article consist mostly of times in which Trump said some words or failed to say other words; “Trump has repeatedly praised Putin,” “Trump refused to say Putin is a killer,” “Trump denied that Russia interfered in 2016,” “Trump made light of Russian hacking,” etc. It also includes the completely false but oft-repeated narrative that “Trump’s team softened the GOP platform on Ukraine”, as well as the utterly ridiculous and thoroughly invalidated claim that “Since intervening in Syria in 2015, the Russian military has focused its airstrikes on anti-government rebels, not ISIS.” [Russia confrontation] [Trump]] [Continuities]
Ukraine For Dummies
Ray McGovern November 14, 2019 There was no excuse for Congress’ ignorance of Ukraine. Here is a guide to help them. By Ray McGovern Special to Consortium News At Wednesday’s debut of the impeachment hearings there was one issue upon which both sides of the aisle seemed to agree, and it was a comic-book caricature of reality. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff led off the proceedings with this: “In 2014, Russia invaded a United States ally, Ukraine, to reverse that nation’s embrace of the West, and to fulfill Vladimir Putin’s desire to rebuild a Russian empire…” Five years ago, when Ukraine first came into the news, those Americans who thought Ukraine was an island in the Pacific can perhaps be forgiven. That members of the House Intelligence Committee don’t know — or pretend not to know — more accurate information about Ukraine is a scandal, and a consequential one. As Professor Stephen Cohen has warned, if the impeachment process does not deal in objective fact, already high tensions with Russia are likely to become even more dangerous. So here is a kind of primer for those who might be interested in some Ukraine history: [Ukraine] [History]
Russia Isn't Getting the Recognition It Deserves on Syria
Oct 30, 2019 Scott Ritter At a time when the credibility of the United States as either an unbiased actor or reliable ally lies in tatters, Russia has emerged as the one major power whose loyalty to its allies is unquestioned, and whose ability to serve as an honest broker between seemingly intractable opponents is unmatched. If there is to be peace in Syria, it will be largely due to the patient efforts of Moscow employing deft negotiation, backed up as needed by military force, to shape conditions conducive for a political solution to a violent problem. If ever there was a primer for the art of diplomacy, the experience of Russia in Syria from 2011 to the present is it. [Russia Syria]
What Exactly Is Trump’s Impeachable Offense?
by Jacob G. Hornberger October 1, 2019 I confess that I still don’t get what exactly is going to be the particular offense for which President Trump is going to be impeached. Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m all in favor of impeaching Trump and removing him from office, but only for grave crimes, such as waging war illegally (i.e., without the constitutionally required congressional declaration of war), wreaking death, suffering, and destruction in those wars, committing countless assassinations, and violating provisions in the Bill of Rights with respect to indefinite detention, torture, denial of speedy trial, and denial of due process of law. But impeaching Trump for a telephone conversation? To me, that has the feel of desperation attached to it, a desperation born out of an increasing realization that none of the Democratic presidential candidates is capable of defeating Trump in an election. Trump’s impeachment seems like it might be the political equivalent of a Hail Mary pass in football — almost impossible to complete but would at least give the Democrats a long-shot, short-cut way to the presidency. There are three possible offenses that would form the basis of an impeachment. Let’s examine and analyze each one. [Ukrainegate] [Libertarian]
"Special" American representative coming to Belgrade, sanctions threatening us?
Thomas Zarzecki, who heads the US State Department's Task Force 231, arriving to Belgrade on Friday, "Vecernje Novosti" reports Source: Tanjug Wednesday, November 6, 2019 | 09:45 According to the newspaper's source, this task force is in charge of applying sanctions to the Russian security sector and those who cooperate with it. Zarzecki's visit, the newspaper said, was scheduled immediately after it was announced in Serbia that we had purchased the Russian air defense system "Pantsir". The regulation, which he is responsible for enforcing, is formally called The Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA), and provides for the possible penalizing mechanism of any individual, firm, or state, who is found to have deliberately engaged in "significant exchanges" with the military and intelligence sectors of the Russian Federation. This document also lists companies in the Russian defense industry that are banned to cooperate with under US regulations. Among the "forbidden" companies are several companies with which Serbia has cooperated with or procured military equipment from them, the newspaper writes. Among others, there is a KBP bureau which designed "Pantsir" and aircraft manufacturer "MiG", as well as a public company ROE, through which all sales of Russian arms and military equipment is carried out. The "blacklist" also includes the Company "Russian Helicopter", which operates a well-known institute in Kazan that produces the Mi-17 helicopters we purchased and the Mi-35 (tank killer) that our country ordered, as "Novosti" source reports. [Russia confrontation] [Sanctions] [Arms sales] [Serbia] [Air defence]
The New Cold War: Russia’s “Stealth Capable” 955 Borei-class Submarines. US-NATO’s Aegis Ashore Missile Defense
By Padraig McGrath Global Research, November 06, 2019 On October 29th, the Norwegian news-outlet NRK broke the story that between 8 and 10 Russian submarines, including Sierra II class submarines, had begun naval exercises in the North Atlantic. This is one of the largest Russian naval exercises focused on submarine-warfare since the end of the cold war. It is likely that one of the core purposes of this exercise is to test the stealth-capability of the Russian subs, and of NATO forces’ abilities to track them as they push through the Greenland-Iceland-United Kingdom gap (abbreviated “GUIK-gap”), a closely monitored strategic bottleneck. The Sierra II class sub has a titanium hull, enabling it to submerge to greater depths than steel-hulled submarines, and it is also much quieter than most other submarines. In the event of a conflict, these submarines could be deployed to adopt a defensive posture, in order to protect Russian ports on the Barents Sea or Russia’s strategic holdings in the Arctic, or to threaten the American eastern seaboard. Since activating its 2nd Fleet, the US Navy has significantly increased patrols in the North Atlantic and in the area of the GUIK gap. The United States Navy also operates a detachment of P-8 Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft out of the Keflavik base in Iceland. The following day, October 30th, the Borei-A-class submarine Prince Vladimir test-fired the Bulava ballistic missile from the White Sea to a target in the Kura missile-range in Kamchatka. This is the first ever test of a Bulava missile. The Bulava has a range of about 8,000 kilometres, and each of its independently targeted warheads delivers a payload the equivalent of 150 kilotons of TNT. Northern Fleet Commander Vice-Admiral Alexander Moiseyev stated that the submarine Prince Vladimir is completing its state trials this year, during which all its armaments will be tested, before it is scheduled to enter service in December. The submarine will be operational in the Northern Fleet. So far, the Sevmash shipyard has delivered 3 Borei-class submarines to the Russian navy, serving in the Northern and Pacific Fleets, with 4 more Project 955 Borei-class submarines under construction. Project 955 Borei-class submarines are designed for improved acoustic stealth, and each of them will carry 16 RSM-56 Bulava missiles as standard, with each missile carrying between 4 and 6 nuclear warheads. [Russia confrontation] [NCW] [Submarines] [Aegis]
Serbia set to buy Russian missiles despite US sanctions hint
By Dusan Stojanovic Associated Press | Nov 09, 2019 | 9:30 PM | BELGRADE, Serbia Russia will deliver a sophisticated anti-aircraft missile system to Serbia even though the U.S. has warned of possible sanctions against the Balkan country in the event of such purchases. Russia's state TASS news agency said Wednesday that the Pantsir-S system will be delivered to Serbia "in the next few months in accordance with the signed contract." The U.S.'s special envoy for the Western Balkans, Matthew Palmer, warned Serbia last week that the purchase of Russian weapons "poses a risk" of U.S. sanctions. "We hope that our Serbian partners will be careful about any transactions of this kind," Palmer said in an interview with Macedonian television Alsat M. [Serbia] [Arms sales]

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OCTOBER 2019

The EU Is Rewriting WWII History to Demonize Russia
Max Parry • October 22, 2019 Last month, on the 80th anniversary of the start of World War II, the European Parliament voted on a resolution entitled “On the Importance of European Remembrance for the Future of Europe.” The adopted document: “…Stresses that the Second World War, the most devastating war in Europe’s history, was started as an immediate result of the notorious Nazi-Soviet Treaty on Non-Aggression of 23 August 1939, also known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, and its secret protocols, whereby two totalitarian regimes that shared the goal of world conquest divided Europe into two zones of influence; Recalls that the Nazi and communist regimes carried out mass murders, genocide and deportations and caused a loss of life and freedom in the 20th century on a scale unseen in human history, and recalls the horrific crime of the Holocaust perpetrated by the Nazi regime; condemns in the strongest terms the acts of aggression, crimes against humanity and mass human rights violations perpetrated by the Nazi, communist and other totalitarian regimes.” For 75 years, we have been told that the war started on September 1st, 1939 when Germany invaded Poland, even though the Pacific Theater between Japan and China began two years earlier. Now we are to understand that it actually began eight days prior when the German foreign minister visited Moscow. Take no notice of the inherent doublespeak in the premise that a war could be the consequence of a peace agreement, which without any evidence provided is said to have contained “secret protocols”, not provisions. You see, unlike the other pacts signed between European countries and Nazi Germany?—?such as the Munich Betrayal of 1938 with France and Great Britain to which the Soviets were uninvited while Austria and Czechoslovakia were gifted to Hitler for the courtesy of attacking Moscow?—?Molotov-Ribbentrop was really a confidential agreement between Hitler and Stalin to conquer Europe and divide it between them.
This is pure mythology. [WWII] [Russia confrontation]
Vladimir Putin, Syria’s pacifier-in-chief
Russia-Turkey deal establishes ‘safe zone’ along Turkish border and there will be joint Russia-Turkey military patrols By Pepe Escobar The negotiations in Sochi were long – over six hours – tense and tough. Two leaders in a room with their interpreters and several senior Turkish ministers close by if advice was needed. The stakes were immense: a road map to pacify northeast Syria, finally. The press conference afterwards was somewhat awkward – riffing on generalities. But there’s no question that in the end Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan managed the near impossible. The Russia-Turkey deal establishes a safe zone along the Syrian-Turkish border – something Erdogan had been gunning for since 2014. There will be joint Russia-Turkey military patrols. The Kurdish YPG (People’s Protection Units), part of the rebranded, US-aligned Syrian Democratic Forces, will need to retreat and even disband, especially in the stretch between Tal Abyad and Ras al-Ayn, and they will have to abandon their much-cherished urban areas such as Kobane and Manbij. The Syrian Arab Army will be back in the whole northeast. And Syrian territorial integrity – a Putin imperative – will be preserved. [Russia Syria] [Putin] [Turkey] [Pipeline]
Russia lands nuclear bombers in Africa as Putin hosts continent's leaders
Darya Korsunskaya, Tom Balmforth 5 Min Read (This version of the Oct. 23rd story corrects paragraph 16 country to Nigeria, not Niger, after RIA issued official correction) Russian President Vladimir Putin shakes hands with Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa during an official welcome ceremony for heads of states and governments of member-states of Russia-Africa Summit in the Black sea resort of Sochi, Russia, October 23, 2019. Sergei Chirikov/Pool via REUTERS By Darya Korsunskaya and Tom Balmforth SOCHI/MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia landed two nuclear-capable bombers in South Africa on a training mission on Wednesday, a flight apparently timed to coincide with President Vladimir Putin’s opening of a flagship Russia-Africa summit designed to increase Russian influence. The two Tupolev Tu-160 strategic bombers touched down at Waterkloof air force base in Tshwane on Wednesday, the South African National Defense Force said. Russia’s Ministry of Defense has said the mission is designed to nurture military ties with South Africa. Speaking before dozens of African heads of state at a two-day summit in the southern Russian city of Sochi, Putin called for trade with African countries to double over the next four to five years and said Moscow had written off African debts to the tune of over $20 billion. [Russia Africa] [Russia confrontation] [Media] [Heading]
Russian Pride and US Exceptionalism
by Riva Enteen / October 19th, 2019 I just came home to California from a 50-person citizen diplomacy delegation to Russia to ponder my neighbor’s bumper sticker that says “Just pretend it’s all OK.” That’s the American state of mind, but it doesn’t extend to Russians, who are painfully aware of war and its death and destruction. The still pervasive images of wheat in the cities and towns reflect the necessity of feeding the people. The US unapologetically operates on the principle that war is good for business. Russians know war too deeply to accept that premise. [Russia] [EWA]
5 minutes of blinding truth—Tulsi explains why she’s being smeared by Hillary and her media shills
October 19, 2019 Patrice Greanville Hillary says Tulsi is a Manchurian candidate. Bollocks! And she does it, of course, on Fox, since the corrupt “liberal” media —from the NYTimes to MSNBC and CNN—won’t move a finger to denounce the Clinton empress and her proxies. And it is Tucker Carlson, again, of all people, who allows Tulsi to say it clearly and forthrightly. Strange times indeed, but probably the craziness of rightwingers like Tucker is nothing compared to the repulsive corruption of the liberals (wrongly described by the Right and themselves as “the Left”.) [Gabbard] [Hillary Clinton] [Dirty tricks] [Russiagate]
Update on the MH17 Case
Eric Zuesse October 7, 2019 The Netherlands Government is resisting an effort by Dutch victims’ families to find out why Ukraine’s Government, on 17 July 2014 — when the Malaysian airliner MH17 was shot down while flying over Ukraine’s civil-war zone — this passenger-plane had been guided by Ukraine’s air-traffic control to fly through, instead of around (as it instructed other airliners), the war-zone. On 1 October 2019, now more than five years after 196 Dutch nationals had died from that incident, Holland’s RTL News headlined (as autotranslated into English) “Cabinet considers research into Ukraine’s role in disaster MH17”, and reported that “The cabinet will examine whether further research is possible on the role of Ukraine in the disaster with flight MH17,” because “A proposal … for the investigation received the support of all Parties present in the second chamber” of Holland’s parliament. This news-report said that, “So far, the cabinet has not taken any steps against Ukraine. As far as we know, nothing is happening behind the scenes.” Furthermore: “Last year, the Netherlands, together with Australia, decided to make Russia as a country liable. For the liability of Ukraine, according to the cabinet, there was ‘no evidence’ and also ‘no research needed’.” Moreover, Dutch Foreign Minister Stefan Blok said that “We don’t see any reason for an investigation” into that, because “The government is trying to maintain its relationship with Ukraine,” and “because then both the airspace of Ukraine and that of Russia should be looked at,” and because “there are still no indications that Ukraine can also be held liable.” But actually, from the very start of that investigation, there has been a secret agreement not to blame Ukraine for anything having to do with the incident. This agreement is kept secret from the Dutch people. Blok, in resisting to investigate why the MH17 was guided over the civil-war zone, was simply adhering to the secret agreement that Netherlands had signed with Ukraine on 8 August 2014. If he were to agree to the families’ demand, he still would be obligated, by Holland’s 8 August 2014 agreement with Ukraine, to find Ukraine not to have perpetrated the downing. But the families don’t know this. [MH17] [Netherlands]
Dmitry Medvedev visits Cuba in show of Russian support amid U.S. hostility
Reuters HAVANA/MOSCOW – Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev kicked off an official two-day visit to Cuba on Thursday in a strong show of Russia’s support for the communist-run island as it faces escalating pressure from the United States and resulting fuel shortages. Medvedev laid a wreath of flowers at the memorial to independence hero Jose Marti on Havana’s Revolution Square before meeting with Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel and starting official talks. He was due to make a statement to the media later on Thursday. {Russia Cuba] [Defiance]
American support for impeaching Trump rises to 45% amid Ukraine matter: Reuters/Ipsos poll
Chris Kahn NEW YORK (Reuters) - The number of Americans who believe President Donald Trump should be impeached rose by 8 percentage points over the past week as more people learned about allegations that Trump pressured Ukraine to smear his top Democratic political rival Joe Biden, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Monday. The Sept. 26-30 opinion poll found that 45% of adults believe Republican Trump “should be impeached,” compared with 37% in a similar poll that ran last week. Another 41% said that Trump should not be impeached and 15% said they “don’t know.” Among Democrats, 74% said Trump should be impeached, up 8 points over the past week, while 13% of Republicans said they supported impeachment, up 3 points. It was unchanged among independents at 37%. [Ukrainegate] [Impeachment] [Public Opinion]
Tar Baby Ukraine
September 30, 2019 Eric Margolis A crime worthy of impeachment? Not really, just another unethical, improper, crass act by President Donald Trump. Many Democrats are cock-a-hoop over the idea of impeaching Trump. They would bed down with the Devil just to get rid of the boor in the White House. But unless really damning information emerges regarding Trump’s efforts to dig up dirt on his presumptive presidential rival, Joe Biden, it looks so far as if Trump may survive this latest scandal. Unless, of course, the mounting pressure on him seriously affects his health. He is showing clear signs of stress. In a recorded 25 July phone call, Trump, a former reality TV star, asked Ukraine’s new president, Volodymyr Zelensky, a former TV comedy star, to dig up dirt on Joe Biden’s son, Hunter. Trump’s request came after a fawning Zelensky, who called Trump ‘teacher’, asked for more US anti-tank missiles. Trump and Zelensky deny there is any quid pro quo. But of course, there was. It just went unstated. This is how statecraft is exercised. Washington rules its empire – that I call the ‘American Raj’ (title of my second book) – using a well-tested combination of trade concessions, velvet gloved threats, special favors, military pressure and good old quid pro quos. [Ukrainegate]
Ukraine: A Short History of Meddling
September 30, 2019 Please make sure these dispatches reach as many readers as possible. Share with kin, friends and workmates and ask them to do likewise. The US engineered coup in 2014 brought an unsavory brew of ultra rightwingers, carpetbaggers and Nazis to power, and a level of corruption unusual even for the Ukraine. Yasha Levine American meddling in Ukraine goes a lot deeper than Trump’s crude attempt to squeeze kompromat from the country’s new president. I’ve been working on a couple of other things — including writing up reporting I did about a year ago in Ukraine — but now that the impeachment process has lurched forward, I can’t not comment on what’s going on. It’s hard to keep track of all the frantic, overcooked coverage, but it looks there’s a concerted effort in the press to shrink time and space and make it seem like the only truly bad Ukrainian meddling started and stopped with Donald Trump and his cronies. Naturally, big doses of Russophobia are being shoveled into the mix to make it all seem exceptional and scary — as if it’s all part some of kind bigger partnership with the forces of darkness to undermine democracy around the world. The New York Times has been leading the charge. Even journalists like Ken Vogel — who had previously reported on Democratic Party operatives shopping around for dirt on Trump’s people in Ukraine in order order to sway the election and who had himself investigated (in a story cowritten with the Ukrainian president’s current spokeswoman!) Joe Biden and Son’s meddling there — now sidelines his own work as some sort of Trumpian conspiracy theory. In other words: the whitewashing has begun. [Ukrainegate]
‘UKRAINGATE’ TEACHES US MORE ABOUT OURSELVES THAN TRUMP OR BIDEN
By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, Popular Resistance. September 29, 2019 ‘Ukrainegate’ has opened the floodgates of impeachment in Washington, DC. President Trump’s phone call with Ukrainian President Zelensky provided such an opportunity that Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, who resisted pressure for impeachment, is now on board along with a majority of the party. Democrats are moving quickly to make Trump the third president ever to be impeached. Conviction is up to the Republican-controlled Senate, where a two-thirds vote is required, so that is very unlikely. Trump will probably be the Republican nominee even though he has never broken 50 percent support in the polls. Chris Hedges writes that a partisan impeachment will anger the people in Trump’s base who view him as challenging the establishment and could backfire for the Democrats. The political impact of impeachment depends on how the Democrats build their case and whether it becomes bi-partisan. Richard Nixon grew more unpopular and public support for his impeachment grew during the process. Bill Clinton consistently had more than 60 percent support during his presidency, ending with 66 percent popularity while support for impeachment decreased as it progressed. Trump starts with a historically low level of popularity, whether an angered base and failed impeachment in the Senate will help Trump is too soon to say. [Ukrainegate]

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SEPTEMBER 2019

The Plan to Trip Up Trump
September 23, 2019 By Daniel Lazare Special to Consortium News The recent Justice Department report about former FBI Director James Comey gives the public good reason to backtrack to a famous Trump Tower meeting. On Jan. 6, 2017, Comey confronted the president-elect about “salacious” activities with prostitutes at the Moscow Ritz-Carlton. He also provided Trump with misleading information about the Democratic opposition research dossier compiled by ex-British intelligence agent Christopher Steele, a bogus document whose political consequences were sure to be devastating once it was released, as it surely would be. But why? Thanks to Michael Horowitz, the Justice Department’s inspector general, we now know. The report that Horowitz released shows that Comey may have been trying to set President Donald Trump up for a fall. Had the ploy worked, Trump might have found himself out of office for the “crime” of saying something wrong about an incident that was entirely made up. [Russiagate] [Comey] [Entrapment]
Dramatic Footage Captures Major Russia-China War Games Involving Over 120K Soldiers
by Tyler Durden Sat, 09/21/2019 - 12:45 Footage emerging late this week from an annual military exercise hosted by Russia and involving China, India, and Pakistan has drawn the attention of western military experts who say it's definitely "upped the ante this year" given the number of foreign forces and the sheer size of the drills, and especially given it's the first time Russia's historic political and economic rival China has joined the games, amid a rapid warming of relations as both face intense Washington pressure. Along with the only newly invited China, as well as Pakistani and Indian forces, other central and east Asian countries are participating, including Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. What are called the 'Tsentr exercises' actually began all the way back in June but this week is considered the culmination of the most important "hot phase" drills focusing on "strategic command post exercise". Russia, China, India, Pakistan & 4 Asia states field 128,000 troops, 20,000 vehicles and 600 aircraft for mock battle against terror state pic.twitter.com/errnZiMhqL — Murad Gazdiev (@MuradGazdiev) September 20, 2019 Involving 120,000 military personnel, about 600 aircraft, up to 15 ships and additional support vessels, as well as over 20,000 weapons and support equipment, the massive games are being primarily conducted within the central military district in Russia (hence the name “Tsentr-2019”), as described by the Russian defense ministry. [Russia China] [Military exercises]
The Magnitskiy Myth Exploded
By Craig Murray Global Research, September 17, 2019 Craig Murray 16 September 2019 The conscientious judges of the European Court of Human Rights published a judgement a fortnight ago which utterly exploded the version of events promulgated by Western governments and media in the case of the late Mr Magnitskiy. Yet I can find no truthful report of the judgement in the mainstream media at all. The myth is that Magnitskiy was an honest rights campaigner and accountant who discovered corruption by Russian officials and threatened to expose it, and was consequently imprisoned on false charges and then tortured and killed. A campaign over his death was led by his former business partner, hedge fund manager Bill Browder, who wanted massive compensation for Russian assets allegedly swindled from their venture. The campaign led to the passing of the Magnitskiy Act in the United States, providing powers for sanctioning individuals responsible for human rights abuses, and also led to matching sanctions being developed by the EU. However the European Court of Human Rights has found, in judging a case brought against Russia by the Magnitskiy family, that the very essence of this story is untrue. They find that there was credible evidence that Magnitskiy was indeed engaged in tax fraud, in conspiracy with Browder, and he was rightfully charged. The ECHR also found there was credible evidence that Magnitskiy was indeed a flight risk so he was rightfully detained. And most crucially of all, they find that there was credible evidence of tax fraud by Magnitskiy and action by the authorities “years” before he started to make counter-accusations of corruption against officials investigating his case. This judgement utterly explodes the accepted narrative, and does it very succinctly:
- Report of the European Court of Human Rights
[Magnitskiy] [Russia confrontation] [Media]
Who killed Boris Nemtsov? And why?
September 13, 2019 Who was Boris Nemtsov? At one point, just after the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the rise to power of Boris Yeltsin, Nemtsov was Russia’s Golden Boy, the nino adorado, handsome, smart, westernized, the face of the future. He had a meteoric rise in Russia’s government, eventually landing the plum bureaucratic job in the land, managing the “loans for shares” program, which bankrupted Russia and created the oligarchy by selling off the sovereign wealth of the Russian people for pennies on the dollar. What was the “loans for shares” program? The program was created to bring about the privatization of Russian industries. It worked like this. In return for cash loans Russia would put up shares in state-owned industries as collateral. After a year, if the loans were not repaid, the shares would be put up for auction, with a minimum bid of the value of the loan, the state and the lender to split anything over that. Bidding in the auctions was by invitation only. As a live Putin opponent ready to embarrass the Kremlin and provide propaganda hooks for America’s hybrid war and color revolution attempts against Russia Nemtsov had exhausted his utility to the West. At that point he became much more valuable as a dead martyr. Thus it was the West that had something to gain from Nemtsov’s death, not Putin, for whom Nemtsov was a mere small annoyance. Would-be bidders set up shell companies to be the under-bidders to make the auctions look good. There was no agreed value of the assets. A bright ten-year-old should be able to see what would come of this. But to the untutored, a million USDs sounded like a fortune; they didn’t know the asset was worth a billion. To the not-so-untutored, it sound like the opportunity of a lifetime, if the management of the auctions was crooked enough. The staged auctions created a criminal class with the wealth of Russia in its hands. O what a fall was there! Who was Boris Nemtsov when inflation hit 2000%, stripping the life savings of tens of millions of Russians, when revelations were made, when people had time to watch and learn, when Russia defaulted? From the Golden Boy, Nemtsov became something you scraped off your shoe. [Boris Nemtsov] [Privatisation]
Remember how France denied Moscow Mistrals over Ukraine? Now Russia ‘to make own carriers IN CRIMEA’
September 13, 2019 Please make sure these dispatches reach as many readers as possible. Share with kin, friends and workmates and ask them to do likewise. A dispatch from RT.com The shoe is now on the other foot, and France is collecting the wages of her abject and treasonous vassalage. The ENS Anwar El Sadat, a French-built Mistral-class amphibious assault ship, in Saint-Nazaire, France, 2016. This is the kind of ship Russia ordered and which France reneged on. Paris refused to sell helicopter carriers to Russia after its reunification with Crimea. Now Moscow will reportedly build its own ships of this class, using the technology, training and cash from the aborted deal with France. The first of the two Russian-made helicopter carriers will be laid down next May, with one of them set to be completed by 2027, sources in the ship-building industry told TASS on Thursday. The vessels will reportedly carry up to 10 helicopters each and have large hangar-like well decks to deploy landing craft. The contract for the ships will be signed “in the coming months,” the source said. Filling the gap The new vessels will significantly up Russia’s naval game, since Moscow is in dire need of modern amphibious assault ships, according to RT’s defense expert Colonel Mikhail Khodarenok. The existing amphibious APCs are “very bad swimmers,” which are only able to “land troops in secure coves with calm waters.” Moreover, Khodarenok believes that modern warfare challenges would make it “impossible” to deploy the Soviet-era tech during actual combat. A new type of vessel is required to fill this gap, and this is something Russia has been working on. Enter the Mistral Russia initially wanted to solve the problem by purchasing the helicopter carriers overseas. Its 2010 international tender was won by France, which promised to build two of its newest Mistral-class vessels, tailoring them for Russian needs in the process. An aerial view showing the Mistral-class helicopter carrier Vladivostok built for Russia at the STX Les Chantiers de l’Atlantique shipyard site in the port of Montoir-de-Bretagne near Saint Nazaire, western France (September 22, 2014). Moscow enjoyed fairly good relations with Paris at the time, so the deal seemed poised for success. The contract was supposed to be the biggest arms sale by any NATO country to Russia ever. The shipyard in Saint-Nazaire on the French Atlantic coast worked non-stop to have the first carrier delivered to Moscow in the fall of 2014. The second one was due to be handed over a year later. François Hollande, the faux socialist, remains one of the worst examples of vassalage to Washington in Modern Europe, and a despicable president for the French people. That all came crashing down in the wake of the 2014 coup in Ukraine, after Crimea voted to rejoin Russia and civil war broke out in the Donbass. The EU decided to slap Moscow with sanctions. France jumped on the bandwagon, with then-president Francois Hollande halting the delivery of the Mistrals indefinitely. [Russia confrontation] [Ukraine coup] [Crimea] [France] [Arms sales] [Unintended consequences] [Self reliance]
S. Korean deputy prime minister visit Vladivostok for Eastern Economic Forum
Posted on : Sep.9,2019 17:24 KST Modified on : Sep.9,2019 17:24 KST Announces S. Korea’s pursuit of FTA with Russia ? South Korean Deputy Prime Minister Hong Nam-ki speaks during the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Russia, Sept. 5. (provided by the Ministry of Economy and Finance) Hong Nam-ki, South Korea’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy and Finance, said during a visit to Russia for the Eastern Economic Forum that Seoul would pursuing a free trade agreement (FTA) with Moscow in the area of goods. According to accounts from the Ministry of Economy and Finance (MOEF) on Sept. 6, Hong held a dinner talk with around 100 representatives of businesses and locally operating [South Korean] businesspeople during the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok the evening before. During the encounter, Hong said that South Korea would be “concluding the service/investment FTA negotiations initiated with Russia this June as quickly as possible and holding active discussions with the Russian government so that an FTA in goods can be swiftly pursued.” [Russia SK] [FTA] [SK NK relations]
China and Russia’s sky-high strategy
28 August 2019 Author: Artyom Lukin, Far Eastern Federal University On 23 July 2019, Russian and Chinese warplanes — long-range nuclear-capable bombers accompanied by fighter jets and surveillance aircraft — conducted a ‘joint patrol’ over the East China Sea and the Sea of Japan. This marked the first ever joint air force operation by Russia and China beyond their borders. A Russian A-50 military aircraft flies near the disputed islands called Takeshima in Japan and Dokdo in South Korea, 23 July 2019 (Photo: Reuters/Joint Staff Office of the Defense Ministry of Japan).The show of force in the Northeast Asian skies was meant to signal the growing strength of the China–Russia strategic bond and the main target of this message was Seoul. The patrol’s route ran over the Dokdo (Takeshima) islands, one of the most politically sensitive areas in East Asia. The islands are disputed between South Korea and Japan, so the China–Russia operation caused a commotion. Seoul and Tokyo both claimed that a Russian military plane from the joint patrol group twice violated Dokdo’s airspace, prompting South Korean interceptor jets to fire hundreds of warning shots. The Russian and Chinese governments categorically state that the mission took place over international waters and did not breach any sovereign airspace. Whether or not an actual violation of the airspace over Dokdo took place, this first joint mission by Russian and Chinese air forces carries major diplomatic and strategic significance. By executing an operation in the Northeast Asian skies, Moscow and Beijing are sending the message that their ‘strategic partnership’ is not a paper tiger — it is becoming a political–military force to be reckoned with. [Russia China]
National Security Adviser in Secret Russia Visit
By Lee Min-seok, Yoon Hyung-jun September 06, 2019 11:12 Chung Eui-yong Cheong Wa Dae's National Security Adviser Chung Eui-yong is reportedly on a secret trip to Russia, raising speculation that he went there to meet North Korea's Vice Premier Ri Ryong-nam, who is attending the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok. Diplomatic sources said Chung headed to Russia on Wednesday with other officials. They said he wants to "investigate the political situation in Northeast Asia" while President Moon Jae-in is visiting Southeast Asia. Ruling party lawmakers here hope that stalled U.S.-North Korea and inter-Korean dialogue can resume next month. Moon said recently that he wants to invite North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to the ASEAN meeting in Busan in late November, but Ri said this would be impossible and accused South Korea of failing to adhere to cross-border agreements. [Chung Eui-yong] [Russia SK] [SK NK negotiations]

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AUGUST 2019

Andrei Martyanov recommends our title The Russian Peace Threat.
August 21, 2019 Another important dispatch from The Greanville Post. Be sure to share it widely. Editor’s Note: We are gratified to see Andrei Martyanov. a man we deeply appreciate, filing a much needed review on the ironically titled The Russian Peace Threat. I say “much needed” because this volume has had an unusually hard liftoff. As befits a book telling the truth about the Cold War in a new atmosphere of manufactured all-out russophobia, Ron Ridenour’s ambitious volume on the history of Soviet-American relations (and everything else surrounding such) has met with a wall of silence, censorship and studied indifference. Even the publication of uniformly rave reviews by respected progressive anti-imperialist voices such as Dave Lindorff, The Saker, Dan Kovalik, and John Rachel, among others, have failed to turn the tide. In that manner the story of the most important events of the 20th century, told by a uniquely positioned witness with a lifetime of work and direct participation in such struggles, is being buried before our eyes, precisely as the unfeeling, parasitic and above all robotic United States of Borg (as Kevyn Jacobs accurately called it), continues its march toward a nuclear Armageddon. If you haven’t read this book, do yourself a favor and get it today. It will be one of the best additions to your personal library in many years. And be sure to discuss it with kin, friends and workmates. We are in an epochal, historically unprecedented, and—no hyperbole here—impossibly high-stakes battle of communications we cannot afford to lose. This book is precisely the kind of ammo we need for that struggle. Use it well. —PG The Russian Peace Threat by Ron Ridenour. Reviewed by Andrei Martyanov Paperback: 564 pages Publisher: Punto Press, LLC; 1 edition (June 22, 2018) About the reviewer: Andrei Martyanov, a world-known military and geopolitical analyst, is the author of the indispensable Losing Miltary Supremacy (The Myopia of American Strategic Planning), a book that Pepe Escobar aptly categorised as “the ultimate Weapon of Myth Destruction (WMD).” I am not good at writing reviews for anything, unless it is some kind of military or geopolitics related matter, but Ron Ridenour’s book The Russian Peace Threat: Pentagon On Alert is one of those cases when a review must be written. A very positive review at that. Ridenour book’s title is not sarcastic, it is a reflection of a reality of the nature of the Cold War 1.0 slowly transitioning to Cold War 2.0 as was and is seen not only from within the Soviet Union, but was seen by many people around the globe who remembered the horrors of WW II and were aware of the price the Soviet people paid in ridding world of the Nazi scourge. Ridenour’s book to a large extent is about it. Not surprisingly, when writing about Yuri Gagarin he stresses the horror of war Gagarin and his family, as millions upon millions of Russian families, went through. He is also not surprised with the cynicism of modern Western mass-media which on the 50th Anniversary of Gagarin’s historic first, tried to, entirely expectedly, downplay or ridicule his achievement, reducing it to merely a propaganda coup. It is a well-established pattern today of the US military-intelligence-media complex which goes out of its way to obfuscate or completely eliminate political, military, industrial and scientific realities of the world outside the borders of the United States and its vassals in Europe. [Russia confrontation]
Is Russia flexing its muscles in Asia?
29 July 2019 Author: Anthony Rinna, Sino-NK On 23 July, a Russian air force A-50 surveillance aircraft entered the airspace near the Liancourt Rocks, which are administered by South Korea under the name Dokdo and also claimed by Japan under the name Takeshima. The South Korean air force fired several hundred warning shots at the Russian aircraft in response. Russian President Vladimir Putin, accompanied by Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff of Russian Armed Forces Valery Gerasimov, tours an exhibition of military transport and equipment as he visits a Defence Ministry’s flight test centre in the town of Akhtubinsk in Astrakhan Region, Russia, 14 May 2019 (Photo: Reuters/Sputnik/Alexei Nikolsky). Russian aerial incursions into South Korea’s Air Defence Identification Zone (ADIZ) — not to be confused with sovereign airspace — occur fairly often, usually near the southern island of Jeju. The South Korean air force usually responds by scrambling jets to escort Russian aircraft and by lodging a formal diplomatic complaint with Moscow. But the Liancourt Rocks are within South Korea’s claimed sovereign airspace. In the immediate aftermath of the incident, South Korean National Security Office Director Chung Eui-yong lodged a protest with the Secretary of the Security Council of Russia, Nikolai Patrushev. According to the Blue House, one Russian official attributed the intrusion to a technical error. The South Korean government claimed that Russia expressed regret over the incident, which Russia categorically denied. The incident underscores several key points in the Kremlin’s policies toward the Korean Peninsula and Northeast Asia. The standoff between Moscow and Seoul has arisen despite the importance Russia places on smooth relations with Northeast Asian states for economic reasons and Russia’s quest for security in a tight geopolitical neighbourhood. Russia must choose between being a military power or an economic player in its Northeast Asia policy [Russia SK] [Russia confrontation]

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JULY 2019

The Malaysian Airlines MH17 Tragedy, Suppression and Tampering of the Evidence. New Documentary
- FBI Attempt to Seize Black Boxes; Dutch Cover-up of Forged Telephone Tapes; Ukrainian Air Force Hid Radar Records; Crash Site Witness Testimony Misreported By John Helmer Global Research, July 27, 2019 A new documentary from Yana Yerlashova and Max van der Werff, the leading independent investigator of the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 disaster, has revealed breakthrough evidence of tampering and forging of prosecution materials; suppression of Ukrainian Air Force radar tapes; and lying by the Dutch, Ukrainian, US and Australian governments. An attempt by agents of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to take possession of the black boxes of the downed aircraft is also revealed by a Malaysian National Security Council official for the first time. The sources of the breakthrough are Malaysian — Prime Minister of Malaysia Mohamad Mahathir; Colonel Mohamad Sakri, the officer in charge of the MH17 investigation for the Prime Minister’s Department and Malaysia’s National Security Council following the crash on July 17, 2014; and a forensic analysis by Malaysia’s OG IT Forensic Services of Ukrainian Secret Service (SBU) telephone tapes which Dutch prosecutors have announced as genuine. The 298 casualties of MH17 included 192 Dutch; 44 Malaysians; 27 Australians; 15 Indonesians. The nationality counts vary because the airline manifest does not identify dual nationals of Australia, the UK, and the US. The new film throws the full weight of the Malaysian Government, one of the five members of the Joint Investigation Team (JIT), against the published findings and the recent indictment of Russian suspects reported by the Dutch officials in charge of the JIT; in addition to Malaysia and The Netherlands, the members of the JIT are Australia, Ukraine and Belgium. Malaysia’s exclusion from the JIT at the outset, and Belgium’s inclusion (4 Belgian nationals were listed on the MH17 passenger manifest), have never been explained. The film reveals the Malaysian Government’s evidence for judging the JIT’s witness testimony, photographs, video clips, and telephone tapes to have been manipulated by the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU), and to be inadmissible in a criminal prosecution in a Malaysian or other national or international court. For the first time also, the Malaysian Government reveals how it got in the way of attempts the US was organizing during the first week after the crash to launch a NATO military attack on eastern Ukraine. The cover story for that was to rescue the plane, passenger bodies, and evidence of what had caused the crash. In fact, the operation was aimed at defeating the separatist movements in the Donbass, and to move against Russian-held Crimea. The new film reveals that a secret Malaysian military operation took custody of the MH17 black boxes on July 22, preventing the US and Ukraine from seizing them. The Malaysian operation, revealed in the film by the Malaysian Army colonel who led it, eliminated the evidence for the camouflage story, reinforcing the German Government’s opposition to the armed attack, and forcing the Dutch to call off the invasion on July 27. The 28-minute documentary by Max van der Werff and Yana Yerlashova has just been released. Yerlashova was the film director and co-producer with van der Werff and Ahmed Rifazal. Vitaly Biryukov directed the photography. Watch it in full here or below. [MH17] [Malaysia]
Russia proposes supplying S. Korea with semiconductor materials to replace those from Japan
Posted on : Jul.12,2019 16:20 KST Modified on : Jul.12,2019 16:20 KST Facebook ???? Moscow communicates willingness to supply via diplomatic channel The production process for semiconductors involving materials subject to Japan’s recent export controls Russia suggested that it may be able to supply South Korean businesses with highly pure hydrogen fluoride (etching gas), one of the items subjected to recent export controls by the Japanese government, the Hankyoreh has learned. “Russia recently communicated to the [South Korean] government through a diplomatic channel that it may be able to supply its hydrogen fluoride to South Korean businesses,” a South Korean government official said on July 11. “The South Korean government has also been continuing to look for ways of replacing Japanese imports since a temporary halt in hydrogen fluoride supplies in November 2018,” the official added. [Japan SK] [Forced labour] [Sanctions] [Russia]

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JUNE 2019

Trump’s Russian Problem
by Melvin Goodman June 21, 2019 In two and a half years, Donald Trump and his national security team have managed to worsen virtually every aspect of American national security policy. Trump has bullied and harangued our traditional West European allies and, as a result, bilateral relations with Britain, France, and Germany have become more difficult. France, Germany, and even Japan have begun to rethink their security policies because of the uncertainty that surrounds dealing with the Trump administration. President Barack Obama left Trump a path for dealing with traditional foes in Cuba and Iran, but the president has made these issues far more problematic and, in the case of Tehran, raised the specter of confrontation. The most bizarre development has been the contradictory handling of the Russian problem, which finds Russian-American relations returning to a Cold War paradigm. Trump campaigned on the basis of stabilizing and strengthening relations with Russia. Nevertheless, he appointed national security teams devoid of experience in conceptualizing and implementing diplomacy. General officers dominated his first national security team; key figures opposed to Russia and to arms control were appointed national security adviser, secretary of defense, and director of homeland security. Only former secretary of state Rex Tillerson had a resume that suggested an interest in a conciliatory relationship with Russia, but Trump and Tillerson were at odds from the start, and the role of the Department of State is severely limited in the Trump administration. The second round of national security appointments produced greater mediocrity. National Security Adviser John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have no appreciation for the importance of diplomacy; they would have been far more comfortable in the Cold War era. Civilian leadership at the Pentagon has never been weaker, and whoever is in command will lead an organization that has never promoted better relations with Russia or the pursuit of arms control, which was central to creating stable bilateral relations between Washington and Moscow in the 1970s and 1980s. The Trump administration, moreover, walked away from two seminal arms control agreements (e.g., the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty and the Iran nuclear accord), and has no plans for pursuing disarmament. [Trump] [US Russia]
Why Russia’s S-400 Is a More Formidable Threat to US Arms Industry than You Think
By Federico Pieraccini Global Research, June 19, 2019 Generally, when discussing air-defense systems here, we are referring to Russian devices that have become famous in recent years, in particular the S-300 (and its variants) and the S-400. Their deployment in Syria has slowed down the ability of such advanced air forces as those of the United States and Israel to target the country, increasing as it does the embarrassing possibility of having their fourth- or fifth-generation fighters shot down. Air-defense systems capable of bringing down fifth-generation aircraft would have a devastating effect on the marketability and sales of US military hardware, while simultaneously boosting the desirability and sales of Russian military hardware. As I have often pointed out in other analyses, Hollywood’s role in marketing to enemies and allies alike the belief that US military hardware is unbeatable (with allies being obliged to buy said hardware) is central to Washington’s strategies for war and power projection. As clashes between countries in such global hot spots as the Middle East increase and intensify, Hollywood’s propaganda will increasingly struggle to convince the rest of the world of the continued efficacy and superiority of US weapons systems in the face of their unfolding shortcomings. The US finds itself faced with a situation it has not found itself in over the last 50 years, namely, an environment where it does not expect to automatically enjoy air superiority. Whatever semblance of an air defense that may have hitherto been able to pose any conceivable threat to Uncle Sam’s war machine was rudely dismissed by a wave of cruise missiles. To give two prime examples that occurred in Syria in 2018, latest-generation missiles were intercepted and shot down by decades-old Russian and Syrian systems. While the S-400 system has never been employed in Syria, it is noteworthy that the Serbian S-125 systems succeeded in identifying and shooting down an American F-117 stealth aircraft during the war in the Balkans. There is a more secret aspect of the S-400 that is little disclosed, either within Russia itself or without. It concerns the S-400’s ability to collect data through its radar systems. It is worth noting Department of Defense spokesman Eric Pahon’s alarm over Turkey’s planned purchase of the S-400: The US Military-Industrial Complex’s Worst Nightmare: The Deployment of Russia’s S-300 Air Defense System In Syria May Destroy and Expose the F-35 “We have been clear that purchasing the S-400 would create an unacceptable risk because its radar system could provide the Russian military sensitive information on the F-35. Those concerns cannot be mitigated. The S-400 is a system built in Russia to try to shoot down aircraft like the F-35, and it is inconceivable to imagine. Certainly, in the event of an armed conflict, the S-400’s ability to shoot down fifth-generation aircraft is a huge concern for the United States and her allies who have invested so heavily in such aircraft. Similarly, a NATO country preferring Russian to American systems is cause for alarm. This is leaving aside the fact that the S-400 is spreading around the world, from China to Belarus, with dozens of countries waiting in line for the ability to seal their skies from the benevolent bombs of freedom. It is an excellent stick with which to keep a prowling Washington at bay. But these concerns are nothing when compared to the most serious threat that the S-400 poses to the US arms industry, namely, their ability to collect data on US stealth systems. Theoretically, the last advantage that the US maintains over her opponents is in stealth technology [S-400] [Military balance] [Air defence] [Stealth] [F-35] [Intelligence]
Discuss: MH17 “suspects” named
Dutch Prosecutors have finally – five years later – named the first suspects in the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over the Donbass region of Ukraine in July 2014. To absolutely no one’s surprise, they are Russian. Well, three Russians and one Ukrainian. The announcement was made by Dutch prosecutors at a press conference this afternoon (Wed 19th). The names are Igor Girkin, Sergey Dubinskiy, Oleg Pulatov and Leonid Kharchenko. All four have been involved in fighting for the independence of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine since the coup government launched their assault on the region in 2014. All four are also – allegedly – either ex-Russian soldiers or ex-intelligence operatives. But as we have seen with the Skripal case, and various other incidents in recent years, the mainstream media play pretty fast and loose with accusations of “Russian spy”. Most telling, perhaps, is the fact that, though all four are Russian or associated with Russia, none are actually officially affiliated with the Russian government or Russian military. Considering the accusations that have been flying around since the incident occurred, this could be considered a cautious first official charge, or even a form of climbdown. A token charge, to refresh the anti-Russia sentiment and distract from other issues. [MH17]
MH17 PROSECUTION — THE DUTCH FIRE THEIR BIG GUNS, THE SUBJUNCTIVE AND CONDITIONAL TENSES, PLUS UKRAINIAN SECRET SERVICE TAPES
By John Helmer, Moscow @bears_with Dutch prosecutors have announced international arrest warrants and criminal charges against three Russians and a Ukrainian whom they accuse of being part of a chain of Russian military and political command leading to the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014. The four are accused of acting in the Ukrainian civil war “to gain ground at the expense of the Ukrainian State and its armed forces”; of cooperating together in actions “which ultimately led to the shooting down of the MH17… Although they did not press the button themselves, it is alleged they worked closely together to get the BUK TELAR [anti-aircraft missile] to the firing location with the aim of shooting down an aircraft. They are therefore suspected to be held jointly responsible for shooting down flight MH17.” [MH17]
FBI Never Saw CrowdStrike Unredacted or Final Report on Alleged Russian Hacking Because None was Produced
June 17, 2019 The FBI relied on CrowdStrike’s “conclusion” to blame Russia for hacking DNC servers, though the private firm never produced a final report and the FBI never asked them to, as Ray McGovern explains. By Ray McGovern Special to Consortium News CrowdStrike, the controversial cybersecurity firm that the Democratic National Committee chose over the FBI in 2016 to examine its compromised computer servers, never produced an un-redacted or final forensic report for the government because the FBI never required it to, the Justice Department has admitted. The revelation came in a court filing by the government in the pre-trial phase of Roger Stone, a long-time Republican operative who had an unofficial role in the campaign of candidate Donald Trump. Stone has been charged with misleading Congress, obstructing justice and intimidating a witness. The filing was in response to a motion by Stone’s lawyers asking for “unredacted reports” from CrowdStrike in an effort to get the government to prove that Russia hacked the DNC server. “The government … does not possess the information the defandant seeks,” the filing says. In his motion, Stone’s lawyers said he had only been given three redacted drafts. In a startling footnote in the government’s response, the DOJ admits the drafts are all that exist. “Although the reports produced to the defendant are marked ‘draft,’ counsel for the DNC and DCCC informed the government that they are the last version of the report produced,” the footnote says. In other words CrowdStrike, upon which the FBI relied to conclude that Russia hacked the DNC, never completed a final report and only turned over three redacted drafts to the government. [DNC] [Russiagate] [Hacking] [Crowdstrike] [FBI] [Evidence]
DOJ Bloodhounds on the Scent of John Brennan
June 13, 2019 With Justice Department investigators’ noses to the ground, it should be just a matter of time before they identify Brennan as fabricator-in-chief of the Russiagate story, says Ray McGovern. By Ray McGovern Special to Consortium News The New York Times Thursday morning has bad news for one of its favorite anonymous sources, former CIA Director John Brennan. The Times reports that the Justice Department plans to interview senior CIA officers to focus on the allegation that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered Russian intelligence to intervene in the 2016 election to help Donald J. Trump. DOJ investigators will be looking for evidence to support that remarkable claim that Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s final report failed to establish. Despite the collusion conspiracy theory having been put to rest, many Americans, including members of Congress, right and left, continue to accept the evidence-impoverished, media-cum-“former-intelligence-officer” meme that the Kremlin interfered massively in the 2016 presidential election. One cannot escape the analogy with the fraudulent evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. As in 2002 and 2003, when the mania for the invasion of Iraq mounted, Establishment media have simply regurgitated what intelligence sources like Brennan told them about Russia-gate. No one batted an eye when Brennan told a House committee in May 2017, “I don’t do evidence.” [Russiagate] [Retaliation] [John Brennan]
In Conversation: Yevgenia Albats at ANU
A prominent Russian dissident journalist offers in a talk at ANU surprisingly balanced views on political life in Russia today
Tony Kevin I had the pleasure of hearing Yevgenia Markovna Arbats, Russian independent journalist, political scientist, radio host, and chief editor of the Moscow-based New Times magazine, in public conversation at the Australian National University, Canberra on 5 June. The event was advertised by ANU as a discussion of… …the interplay between Russia’s domestic politics and its disposition to shape events beyond its borders. Forthright journalist and radio host on Russia’s only remaining liberal radio station ‘Moscow Echo’, Yevgenia Albats has risked controversy and criticism throughout her 20+ year media career. Also holding a PhD in political science from Harvard University, she is one of the most qualified people to talk about her homeland to ever arrive on Australia’s shores.” The audience was predominantly from Australia’s intelligence and related think-tank communities, emeritus and present, with a sprinkling of academics and diplomats. Feeling rather like Daniel in the lions’ den, I was pleasantly surprised by Yevgenia Markovna’s talk and responses. I had expected the usual anti-Putin sneers and condescension towards Russia, favoured by Russian emigre and dissident journalists appearing in Western media: people who feed and are fed by Western Russophobia. Arbats proved to be a more interesting and complex presenter than this. Her main themes as I understood them are worth noting. [Russia]
Why Didn’t Mueller Investigate Seth Rich?
June 12, 2019 The idea that the DNC email disclosures were produced by a hack — not a leak —makes less and less sense, writes Daniel Lazare. By Daniel Lazare Special to Consortium News After bungling every last aspect of Russia-gate since the day the pseudo-scandal broke, the corporate press is now seizing on the Mueller report to shut down debate on one of the key questions still outstanding from the 2016 presidential election: the murder of Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich. No one knows who killed Rich in Washington, D.C., on July 10, 2016. All we know is that he was found at 4:19 a.m. in the Bloomingdale neighborhood “with apparent gunshot wound(s) to the back” according to the police report. Conscious and still breathing, he was rushed to a nearby hospital where he was pronounced dead at 5:57. Slain Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich. (LinkedIn) Police have added to the confusion by releasing information only in the tiniest dribs and drabs. Rich’s mother, Mary, told local TV news that her son struggled with his assailants: “His hands were bruised, his knees are bruised, his face is bruised, and yet he had two shots to his back, and yet they never took anything…. They took his life for literally no reason. They didn’t finish robbing him, they just took his life.” But cops said shortly after the killing that they had no immediate indication that robbery was a motive. Despite his mother’s report of two shots in the back, all the local medical examiner would say is that the cause of death was a gunshot wound to the torso. According to Rich’s brother, Aaron, Jeff “was very aware, very talkative,” when police found him lying on the pavement. Yet cops have refused to say if he described his assailant. A month later, they put out a statement that “there is no indication that Seth Rich’s death is connected to his employment at the DNC,” but refused to elaborate. The result is a scattering of disconnected facts that can be used to support just about any theory from a random killing to a political assassination. Nonetheless, Robert Mueller is dead certain that the murder had nothing to do with the emails — just as he was dead certain in 2003 that Iraq was bristling with weapons of mass destruction “pos[ing] a clear threat to our national security. [DNC] [Seth Rich] [Russiagate]
China-Russia economic, trade ties keep improving
Source: Xinhua| 2019-06-05 13:44:20|Editor: Liangyu BEIJING, June 5 (Xinhua) -- China-Russia relations are set to embrace yet another highlight moment as Chinese President Xi Jinping travels to Russia on Wednesday for a new state visit and the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. Xi's visit is expected to boost the economic ties between the two countries. Here are some facts and figures revealing the growing vitality of trade between China and Russia as well as broader economic exchanges. -- Bilateral trade in goods between China and Russia stood at 33.2 billion U.S. dollars in the first four months this year, up 5.8 percent year on year. -- As Russia's largest trading partner, China's import from the country rose to 18.8 billion dollars, while export was 14.4 billion dollars in the Jan.-April period, up 7.6 percent and 3.4 percent, respectively. -- In 2018, two-way trade between the two countries hit a record high of 107.1 billion dollars, up by 27.1 percent year on year with China's export to Russia growing 12 percent to 47.98 billion dollars, while import surging 42.7 percent to 59.08 billion dollars. -- Agriculture has become one of the key cooperation areas. In 2018, bilateral trade in agricultural products surged 28.2 percent to 5.23 billion dollars. Of the number, Russia's export to China surged 51.3 percent to 3.21 billion dollars. -- Major cooperation projects between the two countries have also been steadily carried out in such areas as energy, transportation, aviation and space. -- The first ship carrying liquefied natural gas from Russia's Yamal Peninsula in the Arctic traversed the sea to China last summer, and millions of tonnes more are expected to be supplied every year. A second line of the China-Russia oil pipeline began commercial operation in 2018, and the east-route natural gas pipeline is expected to supply gas to China by the end of this year. -- New domains of cooperation keep emerging, including digital economy, small- and medium-sized enterprises, high technology, Far East development and Arctic exploration. -- Chinese tourists made a total of 1.26 million trips to Russia last year while trips made by Russian tourists to China reached 1.98 million. [China Russia Trade]
Jimmy Dore Gets the Last Laugh on Russia-gate
June 3, 2019 John Walsh recommends the YouTube comedian who tackles the establishment herd. By John V. Walsh Antiwar.com Jimmy Dore is a comic who has taken on Russia-gate, a deadly serious matter. He is one of those brave souls who count themselves as progressives but dared to call into question Russia-gate. (Twitter) There are those who will tell you that President Donald Trump is a despicable human; and so, if Russia-gate tarnished Trump, the argument goes, what did it matter whether it was true. (The proposition that Trump is more monstrous than his predecessors, Obama, W or the Clintons is highly dubious to say the least – but that is a different topic.) There is, however, a very good reason why it does matter whether the charges making up Russia-gate are true; for opposing Trump over his tax policies or stance on health care is quite a different matter from labeling him a Manchurian Candidate who colluded with Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2016. Russia-gate put a U.S. president in a position where he was unable to negotiate crucial issues with the other nuclear superpower. To do so invited charges of being a Putin puppet, as evidenced by the howls that went up from the Establishment and most progressives over the Helsinki Summit. What if the tensions between the U.S. and Russia were to spin out of control in hot spots like Syria, where troops from the two nuclear superpowers pass within a whisker of one another, or Ukraine or even Venezuela? To extract us from such a predicament, Putin and Trump would need to make concessions to one another, as President John F. Kennedy and Premier Nikita Khrushchev did successfully in the Cuban Missile Crisis. [Jimmy Dore] [Russiagate]
Desperate MH17 “Intelligence” Spin. Ukraine Secret Service Contends that “Pro-Russian Rebels had Targeted a Russian Passenger Plane”. “But Shot Down Flight MH17 by Mistake”
By Prof Michel Chossudovsky Global Research, June 02, 2019 “They [the West] are accusing Russia but where is the evidence? You need strong evidence to show it was fired by the Russians. … It could be by the rebels in Ukraine; it could be the Ukrainian government because they too have the same missile, … We don’t know why we [Malaysia] are excluded from the examination but from the very beginning, we see too much politics in it… The idea was not to find out how this happened but it seems to have concentrated on trying to pin it on the Russians. This is not a [politically] neutral kind of examination” (Tun Mahathir Mohamad, Prime Minister of Malaysia, May 31, 2019) In the light of Prime Minister Mahathir’s rebuttal concerning Russia’s alleged responsibility in the MH17 tragedy, we bring to the attention of our readers the following article (first published in 2014) which focusses on the official Kiev government’s position concerning the downing of flight MH17, as confirmed by a statement of Ukraine’s Secret Service (SBU). [MH17]

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MAY 2019

‘Compassion’ Malchik’s beautiful statue has become a reminder of our duty toward the weak and the powerless.
May 22, 2019 For about three years, a black mongrel named Malchik lived in the Mendeleyevskaya Station of the Moscow Metro. After a 22-year-old woman stabbed him to death, Moscow was outraged, and later erected a monument to the poor pooch. Moscow, Russia Malchik (“Little Boy” in Russian) was a stray who, for about three years, had made his home in the subway station. He was a friend to rail workers, commuters, and the owners of nearby flower and tobacco shops, who kept him well fed and in good shape. The dog slayer But in December 2001, darkness descended upon Malchik in the form of Yuliana Romanova. The 22-year-old woman was walking through the subway with her Staffordshire terrier when she came across the stray as he slept. Romanova set her dog upon Malchik before joining the one-sided fight herself. She took a knife from her bag and stabbed Malchik six times. As reports emerged of the brutal killing, Moscow became increasingly saddened and enraged by what had happened to poor Malchik. And after a year of campaigning, Romanova was brought to trial. She was found guilty and underwent one year of psychiatric treatment. What happened to her after that is unknown. A tragedy and a monument to a homeless dog touch the hearts of millions. To honor Malchik, and to serve as a reminder of the plight of the thousands of stray dogs in Moscow, plans were made to erect a monument to the slain street dog. Donations came pouring in from Russia and beyond, including contributions from famous Russian singers and movie stars, and a group of Russian artists and sculptors began work on the monument.
How Russiagate Has Turned Progressive Truth-Tellers Into War Narrative Enforcers
May 22, 2019 Editor says: The above is direct evidence Cenk Uygur has gone bonkers—another casualty of the Trump Derangement Syndrome— has a very twisted sense of humour, or has been bought off. You decide. Russiagate is an example of the Marxist concept of false consciousness, where the ruling class throws the people diversions so that they’ll see themselves as properly informed while they’re actually fundamentally unaware of the forces which shape society. It’s gotten many left-leaning Americans to commit to a narrative that they believe can bring about the downfall of a corrupt president and restore [a mythical] integrity in our political system, but that’s only worked as a way to enforce the agenda of American imperialism. What’s fascinating is the transformation that these left-leaning figures have undergone as the Russia narrative has influenced their lines of thinking. One example is the case of the cartoonist Dan Perkins-pen name Tom Tomorrow-whose skepticism of the corporate media and the intelligence community has greatly softened since Russiagate got going three years ago. [Russiagate] [Liberals] [Anti-Trump]
Russia-gate as Count Dracula
May 20, 2019 Ann Garrison reviews Stephen F. Cohen’s book, “War with Russia? From Putin & Ukraine to Trump & Russiagate.” By Ann Garrison Special to Consortium News “Russiagate, like Count Dracula, will never end because new political blood will be fed to this vampire . . . The Russiagate fable — fraud — has become a kind of theocratic cult, and it has millions and millions and millions of self-interested and unwitting followers.” That was Stephen F. Cohen’s comment after Special Counsel Robert Mueller concluded that there was no evidence to convict President Donald Trump or any of his campaign staff of colluding with Russia to steal the 2016 presidential election. He was speaking to nationally syndicated radio host John Batchelor in one of their broadcasts on Radio WABC-AM, New York City, which have been archived on the website of The Nation for the past five years. Now, a month later, Democratic elites are still roaming the streets of Washington and the Halls of Congress in search of fresh blood. On May 16, The Washington Post reported that House Democrats had begun a marathon public reading of the “Mueller Report” for citizens who don’t have time to read the whole thing but might listen to the audio. There’s no there there, but they won’t let go. Are they serious? Or just mortified, like most vampires, by the light of day? Whichever, they’re likely to lose again in 2020, because poll after poll says that Americans don’t care; Russia-gate is nowhere near the top of their list of concerns. Cohen is Russian studies professor emeritus at Princeton and NYU. His latest book, “War with Russia? From Putin & Ukraine to Trump & Russiagate,” is a series of essays published in The Nation and text elaborations of the radio broadcasts. Cohen says that Russia-gate has deeply damaged at least four U.S. institutions: the electoral system; the presidency; the “intelligence community;” and the media, meaning most of all the influential “legacy” media; The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the major television and cable news networks. Whichever side of the partisan divide they’re on, Americans know they’ve been lied to by one or more of them. Will they find reason to widely trust any of these institutions again? Will any Washington officials and their staffers, and their allied power brokers and intelligence agents, trust any others from here on? [Russiagate] [Russia confrontation]
US says it will continue talks with Russia on North Korea
Posted : 2019-05-11 07:37 Updated : 2019-05-11 14:03 Russian President Vladimir Putin, center, and Russian people carry portraits of their relatives, participants of World War II during an Immortal Regiment memorial demonstration in Moscow, Russia, May 9. Russia marks the 74th anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany in World War II. EPA-Yonhap The United States will continue to hold conversations with Russia on the way forward for North Korea's denuclearization, a senior U.S. official said Friday. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is due to travel to Russia next week for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on various issues including North Korea, the State Department official told reporters in a phone conference. [Russia NK] [Kim_Putin_summit1904] [Pompeo]
Two Russian aircraft entered South Korea's air defense zone: military
Posted : 2019-05-08 15:35 Updated : 2019-05-08 15:35 Tupolev Tu-142. Courtesy of Wikipedia Two Russian military aircraft violated South Korea's air defense identification zone (KADIZ) last week, prompting the Air Force to scramble fighter jets in response, a military source here said Wednesday. The Tupolev Tu-142s, Russia's maritime reconnaissance and anti-submarine warfare aircraft, entered the KADIZ without prior notice from the south of South Korea's southern island of Jeju on Friday, according to the source. The Air Force, in response, deployed multiple jets, including F-15Ks, to track them and send warning messages in accordance with the military's operation manuals, he added. "In communication with our side, they clearly defined their purpose of flight," the source said, adding no additional measures were taken over the matter. [TU142 in photo is Indian Air Force] [ADIZ]
How US and Foreign Intel Agencies Interfered in a US Election
May 7, 2019 The evidence is plain—there was a broad, coordinated effort by the Obama Administration, with the help of foreign governments, to target Donald Trump and paint him as a Russian stooge, writes Larry Johnson By Larry C. Johnson Sic Semper Tyrannis The preponderance of evidence makes this very simple–there was a broad, coordinated effort by the Obama Administration, with the help of foreign governments, to target Donald Trump and paint him as a stooge of Russia. The Mueller Report provides irrefutable evidence that the so-called Russian collusion case against Donald Trump was a deliberate fabrication by intelligence and law enforcement organizations in the United States and the United Kingdom and organizations aligned with the Clinton Campaign. The New York Times reported that a man with a long history of working with the CIA, and a female FBI informant, traveled to London in September of 2016 and tried unsuccessfully to entrap George Papadopolous. The biggest curiosity is that U.S. intelligence or law enforcement officials fully briefed British intelligence on what they were up to. Quite understandable given what we now know about British spying on the Trump Campaign. The Mueller investigation of Trump “collusion” with Russia prior to the 2016 Presidential election focused on eight cases: Proposed Trump Tower Project in Moscow George Papadopolous Carter Page Dimitri Simes Veselnetskya Meeting at Trump Tower (June 16, 2016) Events at Republican Convention Post-Convention Contacts with Russian Ambassador Kislyak Paul Manafort One simple fact emerges–of the eight cases or incidents of alleged Trump Campaign interaction with the Russians investigated by the Mueller team, the proposals to interact with the Russian Government or with Putin originated with FBI informants, MI-6 assets or people paid by Fusion GPS, and not Trump or his people. There is not a single instance where Donald Trump or any member of his campaign team initiated contact with the Russians for the purpose of gaining derogatory information on Hillary or obtaining support to boost the Trump campaign. Not one. Simply put, Trump and his campaign were the target of an elaborate, wide ranging covert action designed to entrap him and members of his team as an agent of Russia. [Russiagate]
UN mission: Ukraine actions after Odessa fire inadequate
By The Associated Press MOSCOW — May 2, 2019, 6:08 PM ET Five years after 48 people died in clashes in the Ukrainian city of Odessa, a United Nations' human rights monitoring mission criticized authorities Thursday for delays in investigating and prosecuting people for the violence. The loss of life on May 2, 2014 started during a confrontation between demonstrators calling for autonomy in eastern Ukraine amid a Russia-backed separatist uprising and supporters of Ukraine's government. Six people were killed during hours of street fighting. The worst was yet to come. After pro-autonomy demonstrators retreated to a trade union building, government supporters threw fire bombs into the building; 42 people died inside or after jumping or falling from windows. In a statement on the bloodshed's five-year anniversary, the U.N. human rights monitoring mission in Ukraine said "authorities have not done what it takes to ensure prompt, independent and impartial investigations and prosecutions." In Odessa, residents marked the anniversary by laying flowers outside the trade union building and attending other events. About 4,500 people took part, according to police. [Ukraine massacre]
Orwellian Cloud Hovers Over Russia-gate
May 3, 2019 By Ray McGovern Special to Consortium News George Orwell would have been in stitches Wednesday watching Attorney General William Barr and members of the Senate Judiciary Committee spar on Russia-gate. The hearing had the hallmarks of the intentionally or naively blind leading the blind with political shamelessness. From time to time the discussion turned to the absence of a legal “predicate” to investigate President Donald Trump for colluding with Russia. That is, of course, important; and we can expect to hear a lot more about that in coming months. More important: what remains unacknowledged is the absence of an evidence-based major premise that should have been in place to anchor the rhetoric and accusations about Russia-gate over the past three years. With a lack of evidence sufficient to support a major premise, any syllogism falls of its own weight. The major premise that Russia hacked into the Democratic National Committee and gave WikiLeaks highly embarrassing emails cannot bear close scrutiny. Yes, former CIA Director John Brennan has told Congress he does not “do evidence.” In the same odd vein, Brennan’s former FBI counterpart James Comey chose not to “do evidence” when he failed to seize and inspect the DNC computers that a contractor-of-ill-repute working for the DNC claimed were hacked by Russia. Call us old fashioned, but we Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) still “do evidence” — and, in the case at hand, forensic investigation. For those who “can handle the truth,” the two former NSA technical directors in VIPS can readily explain how the DNC emails were not hacked — by Russia or anyone else — but rather were copied and leaked by someone with physical access to the DNC computers. We first reported hard forensic evidence to support that judgment in a July 2017 memorandum for the president. Substantial evidence that has accumulated since then strengthens our confidence in that and in related conclusions. Our conclusions are not based on squishy “assessments,” but rather on empirical, forensic investigations — evidence based on fundamental principles of science and the scientific method. All “serious” members of the establishment, including Barr, his Senate interrogators, and the “mainstream media” feel required to accept as dogma the evidence-free conventional wisdom that Russia hacked into the DNC. If you question it, you are, ipso facto, a heretic — and a “conspiracy theorist,” to boot. [Russiagate] [DNC] Evidence]
Russia winning the push for peace in Kabul
Three decades after the Soviet retreat, Moscow, wielding pragmatism and realpolitik, is again a key player in Afghanistan By Alexander Kruglov On April 25, Moscow was – for a day – the world capital of Afghan peace negotiations as a trilateral meeting on the peace process for the shattered country brought diplomats from Russia, the US and China together for intense discussion. The results were beyond expectation. The three sides reached agreement on eight points – most importantly, supporting “an inclusive Afghan-led, Afghan-owned peace process” and calling “for an orderly and responsible withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan.” That statement strongly implies that the US and the ISAF coalition will leave Afghanistan as part of a peace deal, which would likely require a commitment from the Taliban to keep ISIS and al-Qaeda out of the country. That would be in keeping with US President Donald Trump’s preference for withdrawing US troops from combat zones where clear wins look unlikely. Trump’s Afghan envoy Zalmay Khalilzad, who headed the US delegation in Moscow, hailed the agreement as “a milestone.” April’s developments follow the two-day inter-Afghan “Moscow Format” talks in February. That brought together Kabul figures including former President Hamid Karzai, prominent figures from the Northern Alliance, such as Atta Muhammad Nur, Yunus Qanooni and Ahmad Wali Massoud, as well as former National Security Advisor Hanif Atmar, for talks with Taliban heavyweights. The fact that this top-tier, intra-Afghan dialogue was held in Moscow, not in Doha, Qatar, as before, clearly indicates how important Afghanistan is for Kremlin strategists. [Afghanistan] [Decline] [Resurgence]

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APRIL 2019

Obstructiongate!
CJ Hopkins I owe the corporate media an apology. For the last few years, I’ve been writing all these essays explaining how they were perpetrating an enormous psyop on the American public … a psyop designed to convince the public that Donald Trump “colluded” with Russia to steal the presidency from Hillary Clinton. Up until a few days ago, I would have sworn that they had published literally thousands of articles and editorials, and broadcast countless TV segments, more or less accusing him of treason, and being a “Russian intelligence asset,” and other ridiculous stuff like that. Also, and I’m still not sure how this happened, I somehow got the idea in my head that the investigation that Special Counsel Robert Mueller was meticulously conducting had something to do with Donald Trump conspiring or “colluding” with Russia, or being some kind of “Manchurian president,” or being blackmailed by Putin with a pee-tape, or something. In any event, the publication of the Mueller report has cleared things up for me. I get it now. The investigation was never about Trump colluding with Russia. It was always about Trump obstructing the investigation of the collusion with Russia that the investigation was not about. Mueller was never looking for collusion. It was not his job to look for collusion. His job was to look for obstruction of his investigation of alleged obstruction of his investigation of non-collusion, which he found, and detailed at length in his report, and which qualifies as an impeachable offense. [Russiagate]
Why Kim-Putin summit could be game-changing
Posted : 2019-04-24 17:15 Updated : 2019-04-24 17:22 By Andrew Hammond The Kremlin confirmed Monday that preparations have been concluded for the historic first summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. With media reporting the meeting could start as soon as Wednesday, a key question is whether Russia can help unlock the stalled nuclear talks between Washington and Pyongyang. Following the collapse of the Donald Trump-Kim summit in Vietnam in February, this looks a big ask. In Hanoi, there were clear and significant differences between the two sides over the scope and pace of denuclearization and sanctions rollback, with growing uncertainty now whether the talks process will collapse or continue. [Kim_Putin_Summit1904]
Kim Putin summit
Tim Beal interview with Andrew Farmer on RT, Moscow 25 April 2019
Kim Jong-un Arrives at Russian Border
By Yoon Hyung-jun April 24, 2019 12:36 North Korea leader Kim Jong-un is expected in the Russian port city of Vladivostok on Wednesday for his first meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Kim's train arrived at the border city of Khasan on Wednesday morning, where he was given a bouquet of welcoming flowers. From Vladivostok he will travel to nearby Russky Island, where the summit will take place at Far Eastern Federal University. Kim will attend a dinner party with Putin in the evening and the two leaders will sit down for in-depth talks on Thursday. A black limousine believed to be North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's drives into the campus of Far Eastern Federal University on Russky Island off Vladivostok on Tuesday. /Yonhap A passenger plane thought to have carried North Korean officials ahead of Kim's visit and a luxury sedan believed to be Kim's have been spotted at Vladivostok International Airport. Kim's visit comes two months after his abortive summit with U.S. President Donald Trump in Hanoi and is seen as an attempt to win Russian support for the easing of international sanctions against his renegade country. Meanwhile, Nikolai Patrushev, the secretary of the Russian Security Council and Putin's right-hand man, is expected to visit Seoul on Thursday to meet with President Moon Jae-in [Kim_Putin_summit1904]
Kim Jong-un's Sister Arrives in Vladivostok Ahead of Summit
By Roh Suk-jo April 23, 2019 11:43 Kim Yo-jong North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's sister Yo-jong arrived in Vladivostok, Russia on Monday ahead of her brother's arrival for a summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin later this week. "Kim Yo-jong boarded a flight in Pyongyang for Vladivostok in the morning," a source said. "She flew to Russia ahead of Kim Jong-un to prepare for the summit." In Vladivostok, Kim Yo-jong was briefed by Kim Jong-un's head of protocol Kim Chang-son, who was already there. On Sunday, Kim Chang-son inspected the potential site of the summit, the Far Eastern Federal University on Russky Island off Vladivostok. Kim Jong-un is expected to depart Pyongyang on a train on Tuesday and arrive in Vladivostok on Wednesday. The 700-km journey takes about 10-15 hours. Kim will likely ask for help from Putin after a summit with U.S. President Donald Trump in February collapsed without easing international sanctions. [Kim Yo Jong] [Kim_Putinsummit1904]
Ukraine: Why ‘OU’ Lost by a Landslide
April 22, 2019 The answer is clear if you read U.S. documents published by WikiLeaks in 2006, writes Kevin Zeese. Zelensky, in 2016 episode of Ukrainian TV comedy “Servant of the People.” (YouTube) Ukraine’s next president in 2016 trailer for the TV comedy “Servant of the People.” (YouTube) By Kevin Zeese PopularResistance.org With his landslide victory, Volodymyr Zelensky, a comedian who won 73 percent of the vote, will become the president of Ukraine. Understanding how this occurred becomes easy when people review U.S. government documents published by WikiLeaks about outgoing President Petro Poroshenko. Who is “OU?” Our Ukraine. In a classified diplomatic cable from 2006 released by WikiLeaks, U.S. officials refer to Poroshenko as “Our Ukraine (OU) insider Petro Poroshenko.” Our Ukraine has been in the pocket of the U.S. for 13 years. The U.S. knew Poroshenko was corrupt. A separate cable released by WikiLeaks makes that clear. The May 2006 cable states: “Poroshenko was tainted by credible corruption allegations, but wielded significant influence within OU; Poroshenko’s price had to be paid.” Allowing his corruption was a price the U.S. was willing to pay to have Our Ukraine serving as president. 2018 billboard for Yulia Tymoshenko in Kiev. (Wikimedia Commons) 2018 billboard for Tymoshenko in Kiev. (Wikimedia Commons) The document also describes the “bad blood” between Poroshenko and Yuliya Tymoshenko. This bad blood continues to this day as Tymoshenko came in third in the first round of the elections, and it seemed to continue through the general election, as those who voted for her, voted for Zelensky — or against Poroshenko. Here is how the memo describes the Tymoshenko-Poroshenko relationship: “there is a thin line between love and hate” it says and describes how Tymoshenko and Poroshenko might appear in public, shake hands and agree to “do business” together, but that a coalition between them was unlikely to last. Former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, who is expected to announce a 2020 run for president, is emblematic of the corruption of the U.S. in Ukraine. As WikiLeaks reports, Biden pledged U.S. financial and technical assistance to Ukraine for “unconventional” gas resources (i.e. fracking). Biden’s son Hunter was put on the board of the largest private gas company in Ukraine (along with a financier and long-time family friend of former Secretary of State John Kerry) and when that gas company was threatened with investigation, with video cameras rolling at the Council on Foreign Relations, [starts at 52.00] Biden described how he threatened Poroshenko in March 2016, saying that the Obama administration would pull $1 billion. Biden claimed he gave the country six hours to fire the prosecutor before he left Ukraine or he would bankrupt the country. OU fired him. Why did Biden want him fired? The prosecutor was leading a wide-ranging corruption investigation into the natural gas firm – while Biden’s son, Hunter, sat on the board of directors. Corruption is a major problem in Ukraine, and Biden contributed to it, bringing U.S. corruption to Ukraine. After Poroshenko replaced the prosecutor with one to Biden’s liking a WikiLeaks document shows he was prepared to move forward with the signing of the third $1 billion loan guarantee agreement. [Ukraine] [Corruption] [Biden] [Russia confronation]
The Mueller report and the campaign against Russia
Dateline: 20 April 2019 The release of the report by special counsel Robert Mueller on allegations of Russian interference in the US election and alleged collusion with the Trump administration has reignited the ferocious factional warfare within the American ruling class. An editorial published Friday evening by the New York Times very clearly reveals, after two years, what this conflict was all about. As the World Socialist Web Site has repeatedly insisted, dominant factions of the military-intelligence apparatus, whose demands have been channeled by the Democratic Party and the media, will not accept any retreat from an intensification of the conflict with Russia. The editorial board statement is published under the headline, “The Mueller Report and the Danger Facing American Democracy,” with the subhead, “A perceived victory for Russian interference poses a serious risk for the United States.” [Russiagate] [Mueller] [US_election16] [Interference] [Evidence]
Kim Jong-un to Set off for Summit with Putin
By Lee Ha-won, Ahn Jun-yong April 22, 2019 09:56 North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is expected to leave Pyongyang by train on Tuesday to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Vladivostok. Vladimir Putin (left) and Kim Jong-un The summit will be held on Wednesday and Thursday, probably at Far Eastern Federal University on Russky Island off Vladivostok. Kim's head of protocol Kim Chang-son inspected the university last week. The 700-km train journey from Pyongyang to Vladivostok takes about 10-15 hours. The North's official Korean Central News Agency on Friday said that Kim wrote a letter to Putin on April 18 in reply to a letter from April 12 congratulating him on his reelection as chairman of the State Affairs Commission, the country's highest decision-making body. "I am willing to cooperate closely with you to defend peace and security on the Korean Peninsula and in the world," KCNA quoted Kim as saying. Kim is desperate for support from Russia after an abortive summit with U.S. President Donald Trump in February failed to ease international sanctions. [Kim_Putin_summit19]
Moscow Confirms Putin-Kim Jong-un Summit
By Roh Suk-jo April 19, 2019 09:54 Vladimir Putin (left) and Kim Jong-un Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in late April, the Kremlin confirmed Thursday. Kim "will make a visit to Russia in [late] April at Vladimir Putin's invitation," a Kremlin statement said. According to a diplomatic source, the summit will be held in Vladivostok around April 24-25, before Putin flies to China. The 690-km distance between Pyongyang and Vladivostok takes about 10 hours by train. According to TASS news agency, the two leaders will probably meet at Far Eastern Federal University on Russky Island off the southern coast of Vladivostok. [Kim_Putin_summit19] [Russia NK] [Sidestep]
The ‘Guccifer 2.0’ Gaps in Mueller’s Full Report
April 18, 2019 Like Team Mueller’s indictment last July of Russian agents, the full report reveals questions about Wikileaks’ role that much of the media has been ignoring, writes Daniel Lazare. By Daniel Lazare Special to Consortium News As official Washington pores over the Gospel According to Saint Robert, an all-important fact about the Mueller report has gotten lost in the shuffle. Just as the Christian gospels were filled with holes, the latest version is too – particularly with regard to WikiLeaks and Julian Assange. The five pages that the special prosecutor’s report devotes to WikiLeaks are essentially lifted from Mueller’s indictment last July of 12 members of the Russian military intelligence agency known as the GRU. It charges that after hacking the Democratic National Committee, the GRU used a specially-created online persona known as Guccifer 2.0 to transfer a gigabyte’s worth of stolen emails to WikiLeaks just as the 2016 Democratic National Convention was approaching. Four days after opening the encrypted file, the indictment says, “Organization 1 [i.e. WikiLeaks] released over 20,000 emails and other documents stolen from the DNC network by the Conspirators [i.e. the GRU].” [Russiagate] [Mueller] [DNC] [Guccifer]
Putin Should Fear Ukraine’s Russia-Friendly Front-Runner
The Kremlin will soon wish it were still dealing with a Ukrainian president who so much resembled its own. By Alexander Baunov | April 18, 2019, 12:32 PM on March 6, 2019. In Ukraine, life really does imitate art. Since 2015, a Ukrainian TV channel has broadcast a series depicting an earnest history teacher who, almost by chance, becomes a candidate in the presidential elections. To everyone’s surprise, this representative of the ordinary people wins. He goes on to dismantle the corrupt system from within, getting into both humorous and tragic situations along the way. [Ukraine] [Election]
A Russiagate Requiem
CJ Hopkins So the Mueller report is finally in, and it appears that hundreds of millions of Americans have, once again, been woefully bamboozled. Weird, how this just keeps on happening. At this point, Americans have to be the most frequently woefully bamboozled people in the entire history of woeful bamboozlement. If you didn’t know better, you’d think we were all a bunch of hopelessly credulous imbeciles that you could con into believing almost anything, or that our brains had been bombarded with so much propaganda from the time we were born that we couldn’t really even think anymore. That’s right, as I’m sure you’re aware by now, it turns out President Donald Trump, a pompous former reality TV star who can barely string three sentences together without totally losing his train of thought and barking like an elephant seal, is not, in fact, a secret agent conspiring with the Russian intelligence services to destroy the fabric of Western democracy. [Russiagate] [Mueller]
Zakharova Fires Back at Trump! US Is Arrogant and in COMPLETE Violation of Intl Law in Venezuela!
Maria Zakharova, Spokesperson for the MFA: “On March 27th, during a meeting with the spouse of the Venezuelan opposition member Guaido, US president Donald Trump stated that the US will consider all possible options to force Russian servicemen to leave Venezuela. First of all, I’d like to ask all of the aforementioned people a question: on what legal grounds were those statements made?” [Venezuela] [Legality]
Russian minister arrives in Pyongyang amid speculation over Kim's trip to Moscow
Posted : 2019-04-02 10:27 Updated : 2019-04-02 14:22 By Park Si-soo Russian Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev arrived on an unannounced visit to the North Korean capital of Pyongyang, the Korean Central News Agency (KSNA) said on Tuesday. "Russia's Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev and persons accompanying him arrived in Pyongyang on April 1," the agency said. There has been no information about the duration of the visit or its agenda. The trip by Kolokoltsev, who is known to be in charge of security issues, came amid speculation that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is preparing to visit Russia for his first summit with Putin, which could take place as early as this month. Earlier, Kim Chang-son, known as Kim's de facto chief of staff, visited Moscow and Vladivostok, spawning speculation that the leader's Russia trip might be imminent. The North Korean leader has visited China four times since last year for summits with Chinese President Xi Jinping, including the latest in January. But he has not traveled to Russia since taking office in late 2011. North Korea appears to be intensifying its diplomacy with Russia since the breakdown of February's summit between Kim and U.S. President Donald Trump. Three senior North Korean officials made back-to-back visits to Russia last month. [Russia NK] [Kim_Putin]
Pelosi and McConnell Crank Up NATO Madness
March 31, 2019 Norman Solomon calls for all forms of pushback against a militarized political culture welcoming a NATO chief to Congress next week. By Norman Solomon When House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell teamed up to invite NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg to address a joint session of Congress, they had every reason to expect the April 3 speech to be a big hit with U.S. media and political elites. The establishment is eager to affirm the sanctity of support for the transatlantic military alliance. Huge reverence for NATO is matched by how dangerous NATO has become. NATO’s continual expansion — all the way to Russia’s borders — has significantly increased the chances that the world’s two nuclear superpowers will get into direct military conflict. But in the United States, when anyone challenges the continued expansion of NATO, innuendos or outright smears are likely. Two years ago, when the Senate debated whether to approve bringing Montenegro into NATO, the mud flew at Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky after he showed up to object. An infuriated Sen. John McCain declared on the Senate floor: “I have no idea why anyone would object to this, except that I will say — if they object, they are now carrying out the desires and ambitions of Vladimir Putin, and I do not say that lightly.” Moments later, when Paul said “I object,” McCain proclaimed: “The senator from Kentucky is now working for Vladimir Putin.” [Russia confrontation] [NATO]

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MARCH 2019

Senior S. Korean national security official paid secret visit to Russia
Posted on : Mar.29,2019 14:38 KST Modified on : Mar.29,2019 14:38 KST Visit follows Russia trip by Kim Jong-un’s de facto chief of staff A senior national security official from South Korea recently paid a secret visit to Russia. Multiple sources said that Kim Hyun-chong, second deputy chief of the Blue House National Security Office, returned home from a trip to Russia on Mar. 27. This came on the heels of a trip to Russia by Kim Chang-son, the de facto chief of staff and protocol officer of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. Kim Chang-son was in Russia from Mar. 19 to 25, and his trip fueled speculation that Kim Jong-un may be about to pay a visit to Russia. That’s why Kim Hyun-chong’s visit to that country has raised eyebrows. Kim Hyun-chong presumably met officials in the Russian government to discuss affairs on the Korean Peninsula following the second North Korea-US summit and Kim Jong-un’s plan to visit Russia. Since North Korea-US dialogue has been stalled since the Hanoi summit, the South Korean official may also have discussed potential action that the two countries could take. [Russia SK]
Ukraine’s integration into West dashed by war and corruption
By Vladimir Isachenkov yesterday MOSCOW (AP) — Five years into Ukraine’s conflict with Russia, Moscow seems to have Ukraine pinned against the ropes. Ukraine’s ambition of joining the European Union and NATO is indefinitely stalled. It has no realistic way to reclaim control of Russian-annexed Crimea, or to end the war with Russia-backed separatists in the east. It’s no wonder a comedian is leading in the polls for Sunday’s presidential election. The Kremlin has long seen Ukraine’s plan to join NATO as a threat that must be fended off at all costs, and its calculations that the conflict in eastern Ukraine’s Donbass region would scuttle the nation’s membership bid seems to have worked. “The Russian strategy is to keep the Donbass conflict smoldering for a long time and use it as an instrument to influence Ukraine’s internal political situation and also as a major obstacle to Ukraine’s membership in the EU and NATO,” said Volodymyr Fesenko, head of the Penta Center, a Kiev-based thinktank. “As long as the territorial problem of Crimea and Donbass remains, as long as the fighting in Donbass continues, it will be a decisive argument against letting Ukraine join the EU and NATO,” he said. [Ukraine] [NATO] [EU] [Eastward expansion] [Russia confrontation] [Corruption]
Stoltenberg: Georgia Will Join NATO, And Russia Can Do Nothing About It
TBILISI -- During a visit to Georgia, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has again said that the South Caucasus country will eventually join the Western military alliance, despite the Kremlin's fierce opposition. Stoltenberg was in Tbilisi on March 25 to hold meetings with Georgian officials and attend joint NATO-Georgia military exercises. Speaking alongside Prime Minister Mamuka Bakhtadze, he said that the 29 NATO member states had "clearly stated that Georgia will become a member of NATO." [NATO] [Eastward expansion] [Russia confrontation]
Venezuela Military Deploys S-300 Missiles Following Russian Troop Arrival
by Tyler Durden Mon, 03/25/2019 - 09:35 Following the major weekend development of Moscow unambiguously asserting its 'red line' concerning potential US military intervention in Venezuela, for which Russia sent a military transport plane filled with Russian troops which landed in Caracas Saturday, new satellite images reveal a major deployment of S-300 air defense missile systems to a key airbase south of Caracas. Image via AMN News Crucially the Russian An-124 transport plane which touched down in Caracas on Saturday carried no less than Russian General Vasily Tonkoshkurov, identified as chief of the Main Staff of the Ground Forces and First Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Land Forces of Russia, accompanied by 99 servicemen and 35 tons of cargo. As we reported the flight came just days after a high-level meeting in Rome last week, during which Russia reiterated a grave warning to the US – Moscow will not tolerate American military intervention to topple the Venezuelan government with whom it is allied - thus it appears Russia is taking no chances with its South American ally. One of those warnings delivered directly by Russia’s deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov to US “special envoy” on Venezuelan affairs Elliot Abrams is understood to have been that no American military intervention in Venezuela will be tolerated by Moscow. [Venezuela] [Invasion] [Russia] [Warning]
US Probes Russian Defenses, Sends B-52 Bombers Within 200km of St. Petersburg
How would the US react if Russian bombers flew that close to Washington or NY? Marko Marjanovic Sat, Mar 23, 2019 NATO claims its rotation of fighter squadrons is a “policing mission”, ie it’s a defensive mission against the barbarian Russians who need policing. So then what is flying bombers which are inherently an offensive weapon? Particularly the lumbering, eight-engine B-52 which is of little to no value in tactical roles against a heavily armed opponent such as Russia, but can deliver cruise missiles and nuclear bombs to level cities and bases. Operation Stir Things Up Task and Purpose: Russia’s Defense Ministry said earlier on Thursday that it had scrambled two Sukhoi SU-27 fighter jets to intercept a U.S. B-52 strategic bomber which radar systems indicated was flying toward Russia’s borders, albeit at a considerable distance. The ministry said the fighter jets had returned to base after the B-52 changed course and headed in the opposite direction. It did not say when the incident occurred. The U.S. embassy in Poland said that B-52 bombers had flown to Lithuania and Poland on Wednesday to conduct interoperability training with NATO forces. It said the planes, which were temporarily based in Britain, had carried out simulated bombing runs. “Operating out of forward locations enables collective defense capabilities … needed to deter adversaries and assure our allies and partners,” it said in a statement. [Russia confrontation] [B-52] [Provocation]
Consortium News’ Record on Russia-gate—A Series of Articles on How CN Covered the ‘Scandal’: No. 1—‘The Sleazy Origins of Russia-gate’
March 24, 2019 From the “scandal’s” outset, Consortium News adopted journalistic skepticism, led by founding editor, the late Robert Parry, with Ray McGovern, Daniel Lazare, Patrick Lawrence, Joe Lauria and VIPS debunking much of the irresponsible mania that seized the land. In the wake of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s final report in which no one was accused of “colluding” with Russia to steal the 2016 U.S. presidential election, we begin a series of republication of articles originally appearing at Consortium News that called the entire fiasco into question. Bob Parry was in the forefront of Russia-gate skepticism, recognizing its domestic and geopolitical dangers. We begin with this article by Bob Parry published on March 29, 2017. The Sleazy Origins of Russia-gate By Robert Parry Special to Consortium News An irony of the escalating hysteria about the Trump camp’s contacts with Russians is that one presidential campaign in 2016 did exploit political dirt that supposedly came from the Kremlin and other Russian sources. Friends of that political campaign paid for this anonymous hearsay material, shared it with American journalists and urged them to publish it to gain an electoral advantage. But this campaign was not Donald Trump’s; it was Hillary Clinton’s. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. And, awareness of this activity doesn’t require you to spin conspiracy theories about what may or may not have been said during some seemingly innocuous conversation. In this case, you have open admissions about how these Russian/Kremlin claims were used. Indeed, you have the words of Rep. Adam Schiff, the ranking Democratic member of the House Intelligence Committee, in his opening statement at last week’s public hearing on so-called “Russia-gate.” Schiff’s seamless 15-minute narrative of the Trump campaign’s alleged collaboration with Russia followed the script prepared by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele who was hired as an opposition researcher last June to dig up derogatory information on Donald Trump. Steele, who had worked for Britain’s MI-6 in Russia, said he tapped into ex-colleagues and unnamed sources inside Russia, including leadership figures in the Kremlin, to piece together a series of sensational reports that became the basis of the current congressional and FBI investigations into Trump’s alleged ties to Moscow. Since he was not able to go to Russia himself, Steele based his reports mostly on multiple hearsay from anonymous Russians who claim to have heard some information from their government contacts before passing it on to Steele’s associates who then gave it to Steele who compiled this mix of rumors and alleged inside dope into “raw” intelligence reports. Lewd Allegations Besides the anonymous sourcing and the sources’ financial incentives to dig up dirt, Steele’s reports had numerous other problems, including the inability of a variety of investigators to confirm key elements, such as the salacious claim that several years ago Russian intelligence operatives secretly videotaped Trump having prostitutes urinate on him while he lay in the same bed in Moscow’s Ritz-Carlton used by President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama. [Russiagate]
Will Grounding of Boeing’s 737 MAX 8 Planes Affect US-China Trade Relations? Russia’s Competing Aircraft Irkut MC-21
By Stephen Lendman Global Research, March 21, 2019 Following two 737 MAX 8 crashes, killing all passengers and crew members onboard, China was the first nation to ground the planes. It’s the largest buyer of Boeing’s most popular passenger aircraft – with 97 of its 371 planes delivered to customers so far. Based on a March 17 Seattle Times report on the aircraft’s design flaws, grounding them in China and worldwide could continue indefinitely.
Russia will have a competing aircraft this summer, the Irkut MC-21. At the August 27 – September 1 Moscow International Aviation and Space Salon (MAKS 2019), it’ll be shown publicly for the first time, aiming for certification by 2020. According to Russian Minister of Industry and Trade, Denis Manturov, presentation of the plane at MAKS 2019 will “visually demonstrate to potential customers and future passengers one of the most important competitive advantages of the Russian airliner – an increased level of comfort.” It’s been under development for 12 years, production slowed by US sanctions. Its design is technologically sound, its success dependent on cost and availability. At end of 2018, 175 orders were received, 50 from Russia’s Aeroflot. [Boeing] [737 Max] [Russia competition]
Why an unbuilt Moscow Trump tower caught Mueller's attention
Jan Wolfe An intriguing area of focus in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into the Kremlin’s role in the 2016 U.S. election is a proposed Moscow real estate deal that Donald Trump pursued while running for president despite denying at the time any links to Russia. FILE PHOTO: Special Counsel Robert Mueller (R) departs after briefing members of the U.S. Senate on his investigation into potential collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., June 21, 2017. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts/File Photo The special counsel has revealed in court filings numerous details about the project, which never came to fruition. Further information has come from Michael Cohen, Trump’s former personal lawyer who was instrumental in the negotiations, in congressional testimony and in his guilty plea to a charge of lying to Congress about the project. Mueller’s team said in a December 2018 court filing that “the Moscow Project was a lucrative business opportunity that sought, and likely required, the assistance of the Russian government. If the project was completed, the Company (the Trump Organization) could have received hundreds of millions of dollars from Russian sources in licensing fees and other revenues.” The project is significant because it shows Trump was chasing a lucrative business deal in Russia at the same time that President Vladimir Putin’s government, according to U.S. intelligence agencies, was conducting a hacking and propaganda campaign to boost his candidacy. The project also coincided with Trump’s positive comments as a candidate about Putin and his questioning of U.S. sanctions against Russia. [Russiagate] [Anti-Trump] [Mueller] [Russia confrontation] [Media]
Putin Now Thinks Western Elites Are ‘Swine’
Dmitry Orlov via Russia Insider An article I published close to five years ago, “Putin to Western elites: Play-time is over”, turned out to be the most popular thing I’ve written so far, having garnered over 200,000 reads over the intervening years. In it I wrote about Putin’s speech at the 2014 Valdai Club conference. In that speech he defined the new rules by which Russia conducts its foreign policy: out in the open, in full public view, as a sovereign nation among other sovereign nations, asserting its national interests and demanding to be treated as an equal. Yet again, Western elites failed to listen to him. Instead of mutually beneficial cooperation they continued to speak the language of empty accusations and counterproductive yet toothless sanctions. And so, in yesterday’s address to Russia’s National Assembly Putin sounded note of complete and utter disdain and contempt for his “Western partners,” as he has usually called them. This time he called them “swine.” The president’s annual address to the National Assembly is a rather big deal. Russia’s National Assembly is quite unlike that of, say, Venezuela, which really just consists of some obscure nonentity named Juan recording Youtube videos in his apartment. In Russia, the gathering is a who’s-who of Russian politics, including cabinet ministers, Kremlin staffers, the parliament (State Duma), regional governors, business leaders and political experts, along with a huge crowd of journalists. One thing that stood out at this year’s address was the very high level of tension in the hall: the atmosphere seemed charged with electricity. It quickly became obvious why the upper echelon of Russia’s state bureaucracy was nervous: Putin’s speech was part marching orders part harangue. His plans for the next couple of years are extremely ambitious, as he himself admitted. The plank is set very high, he said, and those who are not up to the challenge have no business going near it. Very hard work lies ahead for almost everyone who was gathered in that hall, and those of them who fail at their tasks are unlikely to be in attendance the next time around because their careers will have ended in disgrace. The address contained almost no bad news and quite a lot of very good news. [Putin] [Resurgence] [Economy] [Society] [Russia US policy]

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FEBRUARY 2019

Putin: We'll target USA if Washington deploys missiles in Europe
Polina Nikolskaya, Vladimir Soldatkin Russia will respond to any U.S. deployment of short or intermediate-range nuclear weapons in Europe by targeting not only the countries where they are stationed, but the United States itself, President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday. Russian President Vladimir Putin addresses the Federal Assembly, including the State Duma parliamentarians, members of the Federation Council, regional governors and other high-ranking officials, in Moscow, Russia February 20, 2019. Sputnik/Mikhail Klimentyev/Kremlin via REUTERS In his toughest remarks yet on a potential new arms race, Putin said Russia was not seeking confrontation and would not take the first step to deploy missiles in response to Washington’s decision this month to quit a landmark Cold War-era arms control treaty. [Russia confrontation] [INF] [Renege] [Response]
Moscow ready to cut time for nuclear strike on U.S. if necessary: Putin
Andrew Osborn, Katya Golubkova Moscow will match any U.S. move to deploy new nuclear missiles closer to Russia by stationing its own missiles closer to the United States or by deploying faster missiles or both, President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday. Putin said Russia was not seeking confrontation and would not take the first step to deploy missiles in response to Washington’s decision this month to quit a landmark Cold War-era arms control treaty. But in his toughest remarks yet on a potential new arms race, he said Russia’s reaction to any deployment would be resolute and that U.S. policymakers, some of whom he accused of being obsessed with U.S. exceptionalism, should calculate the risks before taking any steps. [Russia confrontation] [INF] [Renege] [Response]
Putin to U.S.: I'm ready for another Cuban Missile crisis if you want one
Andrew Osborn President Vladimir Putin has said that Russia is militarily ready for a Cuban Missile-style crisis if the United States is foolish enough to want one and that his country currently has the edge when it comes to a first nuclear strike. Russian President Vladimir Putin addresses the Federal Assembly, including the State Duma parliamentarians, members of the Federation Council, regional governors and other high-ranking officials, in Moscow, Russia February 20, 2019. Sputnik/Alexei Nikolsky/Kremlin via REUTERS The Cuban Missile Crisis erupted in 1962 when Moscow responded to a U.S. missile deployment in Turkey by sending ballistic missiles to Cuba, sparking a standoff that brought the world to the brink of nuclear war. More than five decades on, tensions are rising again over Russian fears that the United States might deploy intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Europe as a landmark Cold war-era arms control treaty unravels. Putin’s comments, made to Russian media late on Wednesday, follow his warning that Moscow will match any U.S. move to deploy new missiles closer to Russia by stationing its own missiles closer to the United States or by deploying faster missiles or both. [INF] [Escalation]
Russia’s Proposal for North Korean Denuclearization: Will It Survive John Bolton?
by Melvin Goodman February 1, 2019 The Trump administration is looking askance at what may be a legitimate Russian effort to break the current disarmament deadlock between the United States and North Korea. According to The Washington Post, Russia made a secret proposal to North Korea last fall to advance negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang regarding North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. Moscow offered North Korea a nuclear power plant in return for the dismantling of Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. Russia would operate the nuclear plant and transfer all byproducts and waste back to Russia so that North Korea could not exploit the plant to build nuclear weapons. The idea of trading off a nuclear power plant for a dismantling of nuclear weaponry is not a new one. President Bill Clinton negotiated an arms control agreement with North Korea in 1994, promising Pyongyang two light-water reactors in return for a nuclear freeze. Construction on the site for the reactors began in the 1990s, but the Pentagon and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission blocked delivery of the reactors. As a result, North Korea eventually walked away from the agreement in the first years of the Bush administration. [Russia NK] [Nuclear energy] [Naiveté]
Mayors and parliamentarians call on Russia and the U.S. to preserve the INF Treaty
Basel, 30 January 2019 - Mayors, parliamentarians, policy experts and civil society representatives from forty countries – mostly Europe and North America – today sent a joint appeal to Presidents Putin and Trump and to the leaders of the Russian and US legislatures, calling on them to preserve the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, prevent a new nuclear arms race in Europe and undertake measures to reduce the risk of a nuclear conflict and support global nuclear disarmament. ‘We are extremely concerned about the deteriorating security environment in Europe and internationally which led the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists to last week re-set the Doomsday Clock at 2 Minutes to Midnight,’ says Christine Muttonen (Austria), Co-President of Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament. The INF Treaty is an historic agreement reached in 1987 between the United States and the Soviet Union to eliminate all of their nuclear and conventional ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges of 500 to 5,500 kilometers, and to utilize extensive on-site inspections for verification of the agreement. Following President Trump’s 20 October, 2018 announcement of his intent to withdraw the United States from the INF Treaty, the State Department has signaled that the US will suspend implementation of the treaty beginning 2 February 2019 and commence the six-month withdrawal process. If the Treaty is dissolved it would further stimulate the current nuclear arms race. In particular, it would open the door for intermediate-range, ground-based nuclear-armed missiles returning to Europe and for US deployment of such missiles in Asia. [INF] [False balance]

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JANUARY 2019

Guns & Butter – Here’s Russia’s Two-Punch Plan To Help The Venezuelan People
By Joaquin Flores, Editor in Chief, Fort Russ News MOSCOW, Russian Federation – Russian authorities have rolled out a two-part plan to help its strategic partner, Venezuela, out of the deep crisis. The first is aimed immediately at security stability, and involves the use of Kremlin-approved Russian mercenaries from the Wagner corp. Reuters reported earlier today: “Private military contractors who do secret missions for Russia flew into Venezuela in the past few days to beef up security for President Nicolas Maduro in the face of U.S.-backed opposition protests, according to two people close to them. A third source close to the Russian contractors also told Reuters there was a contingent of them in Venezuela, but could not say when they arrived or what their role was. Russia, which has backed Maduro’s socialist government to the tune of billions of dollars, this week promised to stand by him after opposition leader Juan Guaido declared himself president with Washington’s endorsement. It was the latest international crisis to split the global superpowers, with the United States and Europe backing Guaido, and Russia and China urging non-interference.” [Russia Venezuela] [Privatisation]
Russia, Japan make no visible progress on territorial spat
Posted : 2019-01-23 09:25 Updated : 2019-01-23 10:59 Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, shakes hands with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, after their joint news conference following the talks in the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, Jan. 22. The Kremlin talks focused on a decades-long territorial dispute between the two nations. AP The leaders of Russia and Japan acknowledged Tuesday that settling a decades-long territorial dispute poses a daunting challenge but vowed to continue negotiations. The Soviet Union took the four southernmost Kuril Islands during the final days of World War II. Japan asserts territorial rights to the islands, which it calls the Northern Territories, and the dispute has kept the countries from signing a peace treaty. Russian President Vladimir Putin said after hosting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe for several hours of talks in the Kremlin that they need to negotiate a solution to the dispute that would receive public support. [Russia Japan] [Territorial disputes] [Northern Territories]
Crisis in Ukraine: Religious Schism and War
by Christopher Black, January 6, 2019, NEO “The signing of the Tomos or note of Autocephaly for the newly created Orthodox Church of Ukraine is not a church but a political act which may have catastrophic consequences for Ukraine.” So said the head of the Russian Federation Council’s international affairs committee, Konstantin Kosachev, on Saturday January 6, the day the document was issued. This is a new move towards destroying the unity of Orthodoxy, the consequences of which will be catastrophic, first of all for Ukraine itself and its people. One of the worst crises in the history of Christianity was the split between the Church centred in Rome and the Church centred in Constantinople, between the west and east regions of the old Roman Empire, that took place in the year 1054. Today, the NATO military alliance and its vassals in the Kiev regime in Ukraine have forced a further split within the Eastern or Orthodox Church by setting up a separate Orthodox church in Ukraine that rejects the age-old authority of the Moscow Patriarchate with authority over the churches in Ukraine and purports to set up a separate Orthodox Church in Kiev. This is not just a side issue in the Christian world or world politics. It is a key element of the NATO plan to use all forms of warfare in all realms of life to further their ambition of crushing the power of Russia. It is designed to engender hostility among the Slavic peoples, to reduce Russia’s prestige and Moscow’s reputation as the third Rome, to further divide the Ukrainian people against themselves and harden the artificial division between the Ukrainian and Russian peoples. But to understand the new division we have to review some history. [Russia confrontation] [Religion] [Orthodox Church] [Schism]
The FBI’s police state operation against Trump
Patrick Martin A front-page article published Saturday in the New York Times revealing that the FBI secretly opened a counterintelligence investigation into President Donald Trump after he fired FBI Director James Comey has laid bare a massive police state conspiracy by the US intelligence agencies. The Times published the article in an effort to revive the anti-Russia campaign against Trump, promoting the unsubstantiated and highly dubious claim that Trump is a Russian agent. The facts presented in the Times report are, in reality, far more damning of the FBI than of Trump. Despite the newspaper’s intentions, the picture painted by the Times of the FBI is alarming. The Times depicts a highly politicized intelligence agency whose officials carefully monitor the activities of the two main capitalist parties, keeping a vigilant eye out for any deviations from the national security consensus in Washington. The Times claims that Trump “had caught the attention of FBI counterintelligence agents when he called on Russia during a campaign news conference in July 2016 to hack the emails of his opponent, Hillary Clinton.” Given that this was a sarcastic campaign remark directed against Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was secretary of state, and delivered at a public news conference, Trump’s sally can hardly be construed as evidence of a conspiracy. By what constitutional authority can the FBI, based on political positions adopted by one or the other of the two main capitalist parties, open up a secret investigation into treason and conspiracy? The Times article goes on to describe how FBI officials monitored the platform adopted at the Republican National Convention, reporting that the spy agency “watched with alarm as the Republican Party softened its convention platform on the Ukraine crisis in a way that seemed to benefit Russia.” That is, the nation’s top police agency was concerned that the positions adopted contravened certain basic tenets of dominant sections of the foreign policy establishment. By what constitutional authority can the FBI, based on political positions adopted by one or the other of the two main capitalist parties, open up a secret investigation into treason and conspiracy? Such an operation bespeaks a police state and recalls the methods of the Gestapo. [FBI] [Russiagate]
The world’s oldest person record stood for decades. Then came a Russian conspiracy theory.
French scientists stand by world's oldest person Jeanne Calment French woman Jeanne Calment, the oldest person ever to have lived who died at the age of 122, has been defended by French scientists after being accused of being a fraud. (Reuters) By Eli Rosenberg January 12 at 9:05 AM The email came just hours into the new year, landing in the inboxes of the two renowned French gerontologists who had validated the age of the oldest person ever documented in the modern world. Also copied was the consultant who analyzed age-related cases for Guinness World Records, which had given Jeanne Calment the title before she died at 122 in 1997. “Colleagues, take action, take evidence for verification,” read the message, from the email account of Russian doctor Valery Novoselov, continuing in cryptically rendered English. “Otherwise, there will be many people who will want to participate in this show.” [Russia confrontation] [Media]
A Look Back at Clapper’s Jan. 2017 ‘Assessment’ on Russia-gate
January 7, 2019 On the 2nd anniversary of the “assessment” blaming Russia for “collusion” with Trump there is still no evidence other than showing the media “colluded” with the spooks, says Ray McGovern. By Ray McGovern Special to Consortium News The banner headline atop page one of The New York Times two years ago today, on January 7, 2017, set the tone for two years of Dick Cheney-like chicanery: “Putin Led Scheme to Aid Trump, Report Says.” Under a media drumbeat of anti-Russian hysteria, credulous Americans were led to believe that Donald Trump owed his election victory to the president of Russia, and that Trump, according to the Times, “colluded” in Putin’s “interference … to help President-elect Trump’s election chances when possible by discrediting Secretary Clinton.” Hard evidence supporting the media and political rhetoric has been as elusive as proof of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq in 2002-2003. This time, though, an alarming increase in the possibility of war with nuclear-armed Russia has ensued — whether by design, hubris, or rank stupidity. The possible consequences for the world are even more dire than 16 years of war and destruction in the Middle East. [Russiagate]
Russia and the Liberals
by Andrew Levine Hillary Clinton and the people around her did not revive the Cold War on their own, but they did play a significant role. As a general rule, HRC’s initiatives turn out badly. As First Lady, she set the cause of health care reform back a generation – or longer, inasmuch as the Affordable Care Act is no prize. As Secretary of State, she helped spread misery, death, and destruction all over the planet. Her mark is especially evident in such places as Syria, Libya, and Honduras. A non-negligible amount of blame for the ensuing refugee crises is on her too, notwithstanding the fact that she never quite made it to the spot, occupied at the time by Barack Obama, where the buck finally stops. There is however an exception to the rule: as a promoter of a new (or revived?) Cold War with Russia, she has done a fantastic job — mobilizing support in elite political and media circles and among liberals generally. This is good news for everyone whose livelihood depends on war and preparations for war. To keep their game going, they need worthy and credible adversaries. Russia is good for that. With its huge population and economy, China would be even better. But that would be bad for business. Moreover, the groundwork is already laid for Russia, while, for most Americans, China is a blank slate. [Hillary Clinton] [Russia confrontation] [MISCOM]
Russia arrests American citizen on suspicion of spying
Russia arrests American on suspected espionage Russia's state security service, the FSB, says it has detained an American citizen suspected of spying in Moscow. (Reuters) By Amie Ferris-Rotman December 31 at 7:06 PM MOSCOW — An American citizen has been arrested in Moscow on suspicion of espionage, Russia’s domestic security service, the FSB, said Monday. The agency identified the man as Paul Whelan. A criminal case has been opened against him. The U.S. State Department said it has been notified by the Russian Foreign Ministry of an American citizen’s detention but could not confirm the name or provide more details, citing privacy considerations. The United States has asked for consular access. “We have requested this access and expect Russian authorities to provide it,” a State Department spokesman said. By Russian law, foreigners found guilty of spying on Russia face between 10 and 20 years in prison. “On December 28, staff members of the Russian Federal Security Service detained U.S. citizen Paul Whelan in Moscow while on a spy mission,” the FSB, the successor to the Soviet-era KGB service, said in a statement on its website. No other details were given. [Espionage]
Election Fraud: Democratic Party Operatives Caught Creating ‘Russian Bot’ Farms, Planting Fake News Stories
December 28, 2018 By 21wire Yet more proof that everything that the US political and media establishment have been claiming for the last years that Russia did during the 2016 Presidential Election, but failed to produce any evidence of – has actually been carried out by Democratic Party operatives. This includes creating fake ‘Russian bot’ accounts and associating these with a Republican candidate in order to give the false impression to voters and media that the candidate was ‘backed by Putin.’ This fraudulent campaign was then supported by a series of fabricated ‘Russian influence’ stories planted throughout the US media. The election race in question was certainly a close one, the 2017 US Senate special election in Alabama to fill the seat vacated by Attorney General Jeff Sessions. In the end, Republic favorite Roy Moore was edged-out by Democrat Doug Jones, but only after after a sustained disinformation campaign which we can now reveal was waged with the backing of a number of Democratic Party and ‘deep state’ entities, including billionaire Silicon Valley and party donor Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn. [Russiagate] [Disinformation] [Democratic Party]
MH17 Turnabout: Ukraine’s Guilt Now Proven
Eric ZUESSE | 31.12.2018 Finally, a clear and convincing — and unrefuted — case can now be presented to the public, as to precisely whom the guilty party was, that downed the MH17 Malaysian airliner over Ukraine on 17 July 2014, and why it was done. The complete case, which will be fully documented here, displays unequivocally who needed the MH17 murders (of 298 persons) to be perpetrated. This mass-murder was done for one leader’s very pressing obsession. For him, it simply had to be done, and done at that precise time. The full MH17 case will be presented here, to be judged by the public, because no court of law which possesses the power to bring this (or even any) case on the MH17 murders, is willing to do so, and because the evidence in this 17 July 2014 case has become overwhelming, and is unrefuted. This evidence is accepted by both sides. But it still remains effectively hidden from the publics in the United States and its allied countries. (The present news-report, which is the first ever to present this entire case, is submitted to all news-media in English-speaking countries, so that any of them that wishes to provide its audience access to this uncontested and conclusive evidence in the MH17 case can do so, by publishing this article. Any of them that won’t, don’t want their audience to have access to the conclusive evidence in this case, because this article is being made available to all of them to publish, free of charge; so, there is no other reason not to publish it.) The complete evidence will be described, and all of the conclusive evidence is linked-to, proving who perpetrated, and who demanded, the shoot-down on 17 July 2014 of the Malaysian airliner MH17. [MH17]
The US’ Hypersonic Weapons Progress Proves That Spying Pays Off
Written by Andrew Korybko on 2018-10-04 The US stole Russia’s hypersonic weapons secrets over the summer and is now on track to test these systems sooner than the rest of the world originally anticipated. President Putin’s announcement in March that Russia was in possession of hypersonic weaponry was heralded as a strategic game-changer of the highest order because of the implication that the US’ decades-long “missile defense” investments were now suddenly rendered null and void, thereby restoring the nuclear balance that had been at risk of disruption by America’s moves to safeguard itself from a speculative nuclear second strike and theoretically one day give itself the prerogative to carry out a first one with impunity. Russia and the rest of the world were on track to become the victims of nuclear blackmail had this trend been allowed to continue uninterrupted, which is why Moscow’s development of hypersonic weapons technology was such a big deal. Russia’s restoration of the strategic nuclear balance with America was regarded as a major step forward in the direction of stabilizing the dangerous dynamics of the New Cold War and importantly allowing President Putin to concentrate on reforming the socio-economic situation at home throughout his fourth and final term in office now that his country’s international security was assured. Somewhat unsurprisingly, however, the US soon thereafter attempted to steal Russia’s hypersonic weapons secrets and was evidently successful, at least judging by the fact that a scientist was arrested over the summer for passing off classified information about these programs to the Americans. It’s not publicly known how many secrets he gave them, but the US just declared that it plans to test this technology in the near future. The country obviously had a preexisting hypersonic weapons program even before this, but it should be presumed that its efforts might have been greatly aided by its successful espionage operation over the summer, showing that spying does indeed pay off. This isn’t a lesson that the Russians hadn’t already learned, however, because they pretty much preceded the Americans in doing something very similar during the Old Cold War when they basically stole nuclear technology from them and restored strategic parity between the two superpowers. It can be argued that the US is also restoring parity in its own way after Russia rolled out the next generation of nuclear launch systems through its hypersonic weapons technology, but the situation actually isn’t as simple as that. [Hypersonic] [Espionage] [Military balance]

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